The Homecoming Saga
by DigitalEccentric
Summary: The Human/Covenant War is over, but when two worlds collide a new fight begins. A fight for survival, a fight for acceptance, a fight for truth, and one soldier's fight to lead a lost generation back home. AU HaloxBattlestar Galactica. T rating. Unfinished.
1. A Rude Awakening

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 1: Spartan**

**Chapter 1: A Rude Awakening**

_Running through fields of green, laughing, shouting, jumping, not a care in the world. This, the boy thought, must be what peace really is. The sun was warm, the sky was clear, the breeze was, well, breezy. He could see a hill in the distance, as could the others. They had a race. The boy knew he would win, he always did. Winning was everything. If you didn't win, you lost, and the boy could never, would never, lose. He couldn't afford to._

_He ran as fast as he could towards the hill, quickly leaving the others behind. The boy couldn't help thinking something wasn't right. The sky was getting darker, the grass was getting thinner, even the boy himself seemed to be changing, getting taller, older, and bulkier._

_The 'boy' slowed to a halt, he'd won anyway. Coming over the brow of the hill, he spied a town in the distance. Flames engulf entire streets as what seemed like purple flies dipped and bobbed in the sky above, spitting blue bolts down into the town. All the 'boy' could think of though was how hungry he was._

_Turning around, he noticed that his companions had caught up. They too, seemed to have changed, although the 'boy' couldn't quite put his finger on how. "They're coming," one of them said, and the 'boy' noticed the huge crowd running up the hill towards them. "Let'em come," grinned another. The 'boy' did not quite know what was going on, but he knew something was nagging him, something important. The crowd coming towards them looked odd. He noticed how some of them seemed to be disfigured, and pasty, like rotted flesh. He saw others that were big and tall, and their mouths looked funny, like an octopus. Others were made entirely of metal. _

_He suddenly noticed a crowd had gathered behind them. "Knuckle up Marines!," someone shouted. "All you green horns who wanted to see the covenant up close, today is your lucky day!" What does that mean? The 'boy' thought, and why does everyone have guns? "What do we do sir?" One of the girls asked him. He noticed she was wearing the same green suit he was._

_Someone handed him a gun. It was another girl, although this one looked normal, except for the fact that she was purple, and seemed slightly opaque slightly, like a ghost._

"_It's been a pleasure serving with you John," she said._

_John turned to face his enemies, and then the sky collapsed with a shuddering roar._

"...John? John! Wake up!...CHIEF!"

Master Chief Petty Officer 'John', Serial number 117, awoke with a start, smashing his helmet into what was left of the cryotube's front window.

"Thank god," Cortana said, "I thought the quick thaw had killed you!"

"What's the situation?," The chief asked as he rose groggily from the battered unit.

"I'm not sure." Cortana said as she materialised on the terminal across the room, crossing her arms in thought. "I was preparing to enter a partial stasis routine when the spectrographic readings in the area went haywire, and then something slammed into us."

"Something?," The Chief was having trouble moving. In fact, he realised there were a lot of things he was having trouble doing.

"A ship of some kind, but I'm not sure. My data is limited as most of the sensor equipment was in the other half of the ship. I'm using what I can, but I managed to get a glimpse of it. Doesn't match any known configuration I've seen, human or otherwise, _and_ there's an entire fleet of them."

"Great." The Chief was still a bit shaky, but he managed to float over to the weapons rack and pull out his MA5C. _The fight is never finished_, he thought.

"Your life signs appear to be stabilising, but you're very close to being in shock. When the 'ship' collided with the hull, your cryotube was sent flying and it smashed into the bulkhead. You were thawed so quickly that I thought it'd killed you…"

"I'm still here." The chief reassured her. Something stirred within him at her concern, but he couldn't tell what. "What's happening now?"

"I don't know, it appears the smaller ships have backed off, but a massive one has come along side and has launched what looks like small landing craft."

"You're sure it doesn't match anything?"

"Positive, although the frame work does look vaguely familiar, and human too."

"How long have I been out?"

"A couple of months, not long enough for the UNSC to develop an entire new class of ship, and definetly not long enough to have received the beacon and launch a rescue."

"Why didn't you detect the slipspace fields?," The chief had moved to a gap in the bulkhead, the hull of the massive ship dominating the view. Magnifying his HUD, he saw two small landing craft making their way slowly to the other end of the ship. He thought they looked like smaller versions of the pelicans, just without the wings.

"That's the thing, there weren't any," Cortana's eyes began to flicker as she reviewed the data. "One minute nothing was there, and then this fleet appeared out of nowhere, and the energy readings spiked for a few seconds. It must be an unknown method of faster-than-light travel"

"Fascinating," The chief moved away from the opening, and wedged himself in the remains of the cryotube. "What now?"

"Well I'm picking up radio chatter between the landing craft and the ship, but I'm having trouble hacking into it, the signal seems almost… Antiquated." Cortana's brow deepened as she concentrated. "One more thing, whoever they are, they definitely know you're here. I picked up what seemed like radar scans about 10 minutes ago."

"Right," The Chief un-slung his MA5C, checked the ammunition, and flicked off the safety. "Let's go see what they want."

He could hear them up the corridor, the sensors on his suit amplifying the sounds as they rebounded from wall to wall. _At least the lack of gravity will hinder them just as much as me_, he mused.

"I can't tell what they're saying," Cortana whispered in his ear, "they're using personal com units to talk to each other."

"That makes two of us," The Chief kept picking up the odd word, which sounded like English, but he couldn't be sure. "They could be human."

"Could be, new data I received when they entered the ship tends to suggest they have a humanoid form, but it's hard to tell because they're all in EVA suits."

"No kidding," The Chief shifted slightly in his MJOLNIR armour, which was still battered and cracked from the events on The Ark. "Smartarse," Cortana said, almost testily.

"Sorry," The Chief could see them in the reflection of the piece of glass he placed at the junction. Three of them were drifting slowly up the corridor, flashlights on and guns that resembled the BR55 Battle Rifle covering the way ahead. They did in fact look humanoid, and wore EVA suits, but none like he'd ever seen. The Chief slowly pulled a stun grenade from his belt…

"Easy now, this place is wrecked enough as it is."

"Put it on my tab," The Chief threw the grenade as hard as he could. It bounced off the wall opposite the newcomers, and sailed towards the interlopers, detonating just in front of the 'point man'. He heard a cry and several shouts of alarm, and a volley of bullets sprayed down the corridor.

"That got their attention," Cortana commented dryly. "I think you got one with that grenade, although two more a coming up the corridor."

The Chief braced himself against the wall, grabbed a handle and poked his MA5C round the corner, firing a volley. More cries and shouts followed.

"Well, that evened things up a bit," Cortana commented as he slammed in another round. "You're getting better."

"Thanks," The Chief carefully poked his head round the corner, and then quickly withdrew it as another flurry of shots came from the newcomers.

"I think they're pissed." He let go of his MA5C, grabbed another grenade, and picked up the shotgun he had taped to the wall. _So far, so good_, he thought.

"Wait, Chief! Don't rush them. I've just hacked into their signal. One of them is broadcasting into the open. I think you'll want to hear this"

"What is it?," The Chief paused and put a hand to his helmet, straining to hear through the static of Cortana's hacked signal.

"*static*…*crackle* _Frak! Get the medic up here! *S_tatic*_-over that corridor! It might try and rush us-*_crackle* _Ground team, this is Actual, what's your status, over? *S_tatic* _Galactica, this is Apollo. We have a situation down here!"_

He paused. _Well, that was unexpected..._

Cortana sighed, "I can't take you _anywhere."_

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hello and welcome. This is my first Halo fanfic, in fact my first fanfic ever! Please read the first chapter and tell me what you think. (I am also open to plot suggestions.) The second chapter is already underway, but it's never too late for creative input. A little background: I'm a major fan of both the _Halo_ and the _Battlestar Galactica_ franchises, and I thought I would do my first fic as a crossover between the two because A) I wanted to do something different, there is currently only 1 or 2 fics based on this idea as far as I'm aware. And B) as i said, big fan, so I have alot to draw upon. The story will, for the moment, be from the POV of the Master Chief, although as the story progresses I may change to different view points, depending on what happens. Again, input is appreciated. No idea on how long it is going to be, but I do have a vague idea on how I want it to end. That's all from me, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Keep an eye out for Chp 2! Thanks.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything related to the _Halo_ of the _Battlestar Galactica_ franchise. Non of this is officially endorsed, and is just a fiction created by myself based on the two worlds. I also realise that "Homecoming" is also a series of books written and concieved by the legendary Orson Scott Card, and I apologise for effectively nicking his title. This work does in no way reflect upon his.


	2. Galactica

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 1: Spartan**

**Chapter 2: _Galactica_**

"So they're human?", The Chief watched them in the reflection of the glass. He could see two of them guarding his end of the corridor, with another two lying prone just behind them. The man he reckoned was 'Apollo' was leaning over them and he could just make out another figure floating along from further up the corridor.

"Looks like it. Voice analysis confirms the speaker is speaking English, albeit with an unknown accent, and using unknown colloquialisms."

"That's a lot of unknowns," he mused. He had put back the grenade, and was now hefting the MA5C while he pondered what to do. "If they're human, then they can't be enemies. Maybe they're from one of the outer colonies?"

"It's possible a few colonies did survive the war, but they wouldn't have had the resources to build a battleship for themselves, or amass such a large fleet…" Cortana paused, unsure of what to say next. "What do you want to do, John?"

"Well, you're always telling me to make friends," the Chief spun himself around, and stuck a hand out into the corridor. "Don't shoot!", He broadcasted over his loudspeaker, "I just want to talk."

He heard some shuffling, and some muffled coms chatter, before finally; "Like frak you do!," Someone shouted back. He could almost hear Cortana laughing in the back of his skull, "Well, at least they've got spunk."

"I don't want to fight, I just want to talk!", he tried again.

"Tell that to the two guys we got bleeding all over the deck you frakhead!", the other man shouted before sending a volley of his own at the Chief, who dived back behind cover. The Chief could tell this was going to be an uphill struggle, and surprisingly enough, Cortana wasn't helping.

He tried a third time; "Look, I didn't know you were Human, there's not supposed to be anyone out here! Who's your commanding officer? I only want to talk!"

"I'm in charge here" The Chief looked around and saw the man who had been talking on the coms float forward, sidearm raised, "Come out from the junction, hands in the air where we can see them."

_Finally_, he thought. Letting the MA5C drift, he slowly pushed himself into view, hands raised in the air. "See, I mean you no harm."

"I'll be the judge of that. Take your side arm out of the holster, and throw it too me. _Slowly_." The speaker emphasised 'slowly' by cocking his gun. "You try anything funny and we _will_ shoot you." The other two men either side of him had their laser sights trained on the Chief as well.

"They certainly know what they're doing," Cortana said into his ear. "Quiet," the Chief replied, "I don't want to spook these guys any more then I already have". He took his pistol from his holster, and gave it a careful shove towards the group. "There you go."

"Good, now identify yourself." The Chief could just about see the speakers narrowed eyes through his visor, they made him seem old. "I'm a member of the Spartan Special Navy Ops unit, Serial number 117. Rank: Master Chief Petty Officer," he replied. The speaker frowned, almost confused, "What? Never heard of that before, are you Colonial?"

Now it was his turn to be confused. Colonial? The only 'Colonial' institutions the Chief knew of were the Colonial Administration Authority, and the Colonial Militia, a branch of the UNSC Army. These guys didn't look like either. "I'm a non-commissioned officer in the UNSC Navy," he said again.

"Yeh, I heard you the first time. I've never heard of a Spartan, or of this 'UNSC' you mention. Where are you from? Are you from one of the Colonies?"

It had been a lifetime since the Chief had thought about home, yet even now he could still remember the basic details: "Elysium City, Eridanus II."

"Where the frak is that?"

The Chief could tell the speaker and his companions were getting more confused by the second, and twitchier. "Ok, I can see you don't know what I'm talking about. Let's try you then, who are you?"

"Major Adama, Colonial Fleet. Code sign 'Apollo'."

Years of training had taught the Chief to salute in the presence of a superior officer, which is what he did, forgetting for a moment that this guy blatantly wasn't part of the UNSC. "Sir!" He moved with such speed and force that the two men watching him were taken completely by surprise, and so opened fire.

"Frak! Cease fire! Cease Fire!" Major Adama shouted, grabbing the gun of one of his companions. "He's not-" he paused as he noticed the bullets ricocheting off the Chief's energy shield. "By, the gods…" He breathed.

"Oh dear," Cortana muttered.

"Do you think he's a toaster sir!" One of the jumpy companions said over the loudspeaker. Major Adama looked closely at the Chief and pointed his gun at him again. "Good question, how do we know you're not a Cylon?"

_What the hell?_ He thought. "I don't know what a Cylon is, but let's just keep calm. We're on the same side here."

"Yeah? How do you figure that?"

"We're both human?" Something in the way the Major's eyes narrowed again suggested that he wasn't convinced. "We both _look _human, friend, and we both know that Cylons can mimic human form now. Hell, I don't even know what you look like beneath that helmet of yours."

At that moment, the coms crackled as the _Galactica_ signalled the Major again. He turned his back to the Chief, whilst his two companions kept watch over him.

"I've still got the feed hacked, so we can listen in." Cortana said.

"_Apollo, this is Actual. What is your status, over?"_

"_Galactica, this is Apollo. Fighting has finished for the moment. I've got two men injured, I'll need to get them to the med bay ASAP."_

"_What about the Hostile?"_

"_Hostile has surrendered, we have it under guard."_

"_Surrendered? Is it a Cylon?"_

"_Not sure Galactica. Hostile has some sort of powered armour or EVA suit. No skin visible and visor is a reflective orange. The frakker has some sort of energy shield too."_

"_Copy that Apollo. The old man advises you bring it in under guard and we'll deal with the situation on the Galactica."_

"_Copy that, Apollo out."_

'Apollo' turned around, eyed the Chief for a second, and then turned to head back up the corridor. "Marines, place it under guard, we're taking it to the _Galactica_."

"Look on the bright side" Cortana spoke into the his ear as the two marines restrained him, "at least this place will have a shower."

_You could get lost easily in this place_, the Chief thought.

He was being led down seemingly endless corridors, with no destination in sight. Scared, tired-looking and undoubtedly human crew members stepped hastily aside as his 6 man escort led him from the hanger to wherever it was they were taking him.

He had his arms locked together with some metal wristlocks. They had tried to put one on his neck as well, but it wouldn't fit, so they had tried to remove his helmet, which didn't work either. Eventually they just gave up and led him through as he was. Testing the wristlocks, The Chief reckoned he could break out of them easily if he needed to, but now wasn't the time.

"Reminds me of the inside of the _Autumn" _Cortana had kept quiet throughout much of the journey, taking in and analysing their surroundings, "Although the overall structure is more akin to a UNSC _Marathon-_class Cruiser."

"I saw one of those once," the Chief mused, "This ship doesn't look that similar."

"You're right, this design is more rounded and uses unknown elements, but the theory and idea behind the two ships seem to be the same. I bet this baby could take quite a pounding."

"Looks like it already as," he murmured. In every corridor, the Chief saw the same scene: run-off-their-feet crew members scurrying back and forth. Supply and equipment crates scattered everywhere. A few corridors showed massive battle damage where they must have been boarded at some point.

"Quiet," one of the marines growled. They really were scared of him, the Chief realised. _Nothing new there_.

Eventually they reached a square-caged holding cell, complete with a sofa, a bed, and some chairs and a table. The previous occupant must have had it cosy.

"In here," The Marines, guns raised, took off his shackles and one of them pointed into the cage. The Chief stepped in and watched them close the door behind him. Three of them took up guard positions around the room, the others left.

"Well, this is cosy," Cortana commented as The Chief slowly paced his cell. "Shame there's no TV... are you going to tell them about me?"

"Not yet." The Chief went over to the bed and sat down carefully. "I'll wait until they get used to me first, then we'll figure out how to tell them about you."

The Chief quietly observed his jailors as Cortana started hypothesising about their situation. "The question is where did these guys come from? From their reactions they don't seem to be from Earth or the colonies, their uniforms, technology, everything of theirs is definitely _not_ UNSC, but they _are_ definitely human. Everything looks so... _familiar_ though. Just who are they?"

"You're asking me?" The Chief saw that the other 3 marines had returned, along with the Major, and two others. One was a woman, dark red/brown hair with gentle eyes. Even though she looked old, she had a weariness about her that made her seem older. The other was a man, roughly the same age, with short greying hair, glasses, and the build and stature of an ageing soldier. The Chief felt a pang of loss as he was briefly reminded of Captain Keyes. "I know," Cortana said as if reading his mind, "I miss him too."

Two marines entered the cage taking up positions either side of him, guns at the ready. The other marines entered and formed a line in front, effectively screening the Chief from the others.

The Major then entered with the two newcomers. The Chief immediately noticed the old man's collar, denoting the rank of an Admiral. Once again his reflexes took over as he saluted smartly and barked, "Admiral on the deck!" Strangely enough, the marines around him began to salute as well, before realising what they were doing and levelling their weapons once again. "You've got to stop doing that," Cortana muttered into this ear.

The Admiral gave a brief smirk, and exchanged glances with the Major and the woman, "At ease soldier." The Admiral gave the Chief a long, searching look. "What's your name, son?"

The Chief hesitated before answering. Strictly speaking these people weren't in the UNSC, but he still couldn't quite bring himself to ignore an Admiral, no matter what uniform they wore, "Spartan 117, Sir."

"Spartan… You mentioned that to Major Adama. I'm assuming it's some sort of codename, but what's your real name?"

He couldn't remember ever telling anyone his name. The only people to ever call him by it were Cortana, and Dr Halsey, and they had known it anyway. "John, Sir."

"Hello John, my name is Admiral William Adama, and this is my ship, the Battlestar _Galactica. _You've already met my son, Major Lee Adama. And this," he indicated the woman to his left, "Is Laura Roslin, the President of the Twelve Colonies."

The Chief was getting confused. There were definitely more than 12 colonies within the UNSC, even after the war. He wondered if there had been some sort of crisis since he had last been home. He had never heard of a Laura Roslin or an Admiral Adama though.

"The thing is, John," the Admiral continued, "From what we can tell you're human, or at least appear to be human, but your armour is unlike anything we've ever seen. The wreckage you were in is made of unknown materials; in fact this entire area is filled with wreckage of an unknown type and origin, evidence suggests there was some sort of battle here. That aside, myself and the President here feel that you're one of two things, either you're a new type of Cylon, or you're from Earth. Which is it?"

The Chief was acutely aware of the guns that were still pointed at him, fingers close to the trigger.

"Well, technically you're neither, so I guess we're screwed." Cortana said cheerily into his ear.

"Not helpful." the Chief muttered.

* * *

**Authors Note: **Hello Everyone. Thank you for your feedback so far, I'm glad that people are enjoying it :) As promised, here is the second chapter: _Galactica_. I'll be honest, I'm not too happy with this chapter. I felt it went a bit too slow, and I cut it off where I did because I wasn't too sure where i was going with it. Still hopefully the next chapter will make up for it. (I don't think the Chief will remain in that cell for very long :P) Any observations on how you felt about the chapter will be much appreciated. Enjoy.

**Disclaimer: **See the end of Chapter 1.


	3. Condition One

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 1: Spartan**

**Chapter 3: Condition one**

"_All hands to battle stations, set condition one throughout the ship. This is not a drill. Repeat: All hands to battle stations, set condition one throughout the ship. All officers report to CIC. This is not a drill."_

Everyone was momentarily stunned as the alarm klaxons blared over the loudspeakers. Before the Chief could say anything, the Admiral had rushed to the nearest wall-phone, and the Major had run out of the cell altogether.

"What's the situation Gaeta?" The chief couldn't hear what 'Gaeta' was saying, but from the reactions of the Admiral, it sounded grave. A dark-skinned woman in a suit had also come into the cage and was conversing quietly with the President. The Chief was unable to move since the marines still had their guns trained on him.

"It's moving…? Do we know where it's headed…? Launch the alert fighters, and have a Raptor squad ready, in case we can board it… No no, I want to gather as much data as we can… Assign some Vipers to watch the fleet, and have them back off… Yes I'll up in minute."

He put the phone down and signalled to the President, "We should leave. Marines, return to your stations."

"John, a few of the Covenant cruisers weren't completely destroyed in the battle over the ark. If one of them is moving, it could pose a threat to this fleet," Cortana said urgently, "You have to warn them."

"Sir!" the Admiral looked back at the Chief, "Permission to accompany you… I probably know about what's out there. You need me."

The Admiral paused and gave the Chief a long, hard look. The President had also stopped and was looking between the Chief and the Admiral. "Marines, bring him along."

The trip to the CIC was a blur, the Chief was lost almost instantly, and Cortana kept talking into his ear.

"I've been trying to hack into this ship's network, but there doesn't seem to be one. All of the important sections are fire-walled, and the not-as-secured sections are worthless. The only reason I can think off for why they would do something like this is if they have had exactly this kind of problem before, so maybe they _have_ encountered an AI?"

"Maybe. That doesn't mean they like them though." The Chief was flanked by two marines as he followed the Admiral and the President towards the CIC.

"Possibly, you're going to have to pretend you know what you're doing for once whilst I give you the information."

"Thanks." The group entered the CIC and took up stations around the central desk. "This is different," the Chief commented as he looked around.

"You're right, much different to UNSC models. There's no window, or even a view screen for one, which suggests we're somewhere in the middle of the ship. There are more personnel in here too. It looks like that video screen above you is there only window to the outside. It's going to be tricky to tell what we're dealing with."

The Chief had heard the audible gasp that several of the bridge had made when he entered, but politely ignored it. One grizzled old man however kept staring at him with a sceptical glare through his one eye. The Chief's marine gaurds still hadn't left his side.

"What's the situation Saul?" The Admiral addressed the old man. The President and her aide had gone to a viewing platform at the back of the CIC, leaving the Chief at the desk with the Admiral, a Lieutenant, and the old guy, who the Chief noticed held the rank of Colonel.

"Well, we had the search teams going through the wreckage in the area, and then they came across one of those shiny ships that was more or less intact at the far side of the debris field. Raptors moved in for a closer look and then all of the sudden the frakker starts to move and show signs of activity. Shot one of our birds clean out of the sky with some sort of energy weapon. It's now manoeuvring round the debris field, possibly coming towards us; I've got Athena and Racetrack shadowing it."

The Admiral looked up at the video screen, where two green dots were trailing close behind a big red dot, which seemed to be inching its way towards _Galactica _and the fleet"What are we dealing with here Chief?" He still hadn't looked away from the screen.

"I'm not sure sir; I would need to actually see the hostile."He replied. "Or see some radar readouts," Cortana said into his ear. "Or see some radar readouts."

"Mr Gaeta, show the Chief the readout data from the DRADIS." The Lieutenant who was with them went over to a different station on the bottom level. "If you just come over here, I can punch it up for you… There, this is the specific readouts we get from the DRADIS, before it's translated into a graphical representation over on the screen."

The Chief looked at the data. It made very little sense to him, but that wasn't the point, he hoped Cortana was making more sense of things. "Data suggests it's a Covenant Frigate, one of ships Truth brought with him to the Ark. They must be pissed." She said into his ear. The Chief turned towards the Admiral "I know this ship type sir; it's small, but dangerous."

"Extremely advanced as well by the sound of things. What do you recommend?"

"Well sir, our forces only ever won by trying to out-smart and out-manoeuvre them, as they would probably win in a straight fight. Our MAC cannons were our most effective weapons."

"A what?"

The Chief had a sinking feeling at the pit of his stomach. "I don't think they have MAC guns" He said to Cortana, "Show me the stats so I can break it down for them."

"It's a Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, that fires slugs at a fraction of the speed of light, gaining speed and momentum so it can slam into it's target if it hits… It was one of the few weapons we had that could penetrate their shields."

"Sounds like the forward guns we had on the _Pegasus,_" The Colonel commented, "Kinda makes you wish she was still around."

"We have Kinetic Energy weapons of our own, along with a dozen missile tubes, and a point defence system, perhaps if we got up close-"

"Sir!" Mr Gaeta was looking at his console in alarm, "Massive energy readings detected from the enemy ship! I'm reading a discharge of some kind!"_"Galactica, Galactica," _the radio link suddenly went crazy with chatter_, "This is Athena, enemy ship has just shot out a big ball of energy, its heading towards the Harrak-""_- econds till impact! _Harrack_is unable to get out of line of fire!" _"Galactica, Galactica, Impact-""_-imminent!"

There was a slight vibration through the ship, and the green dot labelled _Harrack_ on the DRADIS screen winked out. "… _Harrack_ destroyed, Sir." Mr Gaeta said solemnly.

The Admiral gave a long pained sigh, and looked up at the DRADIS screen towards the enemy ship. "Maybe getting up close isn't such a good idea after all." He mused.

--

"Why wasn't the Harrack moving back with the rest of the fleet?"

Despite having just lost an entire ship, the Chief thought the Admiral was taking this quite well.

"I'm sorry sir," Mr Gaeta was looking at a clipboard in his hand. "The _Harrack_ was still making repairs after it collided with the wreckage. They were working on the FTL drives first and the engines second. In the meantime the ship had drifted towards the enemy ship, and must have come into range. I'm afraid we were caught completely unaware."

"Make sure it doesn't happen again; launch the rest of the fighters." The Admiral turned and consulted quietly with the Colonel, before turning the Chief. "Chief-"

Just at that moment, the power was cut within the CIC. Everything was shut off apart from the video screens and the Chief had a sudden feeling of Dejá-vu. "I'm picking up a signal coming from the Covenant cruiser," Cortana muttered into his ear, "I think they're trying to communicate with us. Try to keep it talking whilst I do some dirty work."

At that point, the screen came alive with the image of a Brute with cracked armour and a bleeding face. "My Gods…" Someone said.

"…_Static… Listen Humans, I am Gargantum, loyal Captain of the Twilight Compunction. Defy me, and I will wipe your pasty faces from the face of the galaxy! __Surrender now and I may give you a quick death." _

"Sure is a cheeky frak." The Colonel muttered. The Admiral gave a wry grin and then looked back up at the screen. "I don't really care who you are, but I will let you know one thing. Touch this fleet again and you'll answer to the _Galactica."_

The Brute laughed. _"You think you can defy ME? With a ship like THAT? Your vessel is even more pathetic then the standard ones." _

"Why don't you come over here and frakking say that!" The Colonel retorted. The Admiral raised his eyebrow at him. "What?" The Colonel shrugged.

The Brute on the screen snorted. _"I shall enjoy feasting on your bones." _And with that, the screen went dark, and power returned to the CIC.

"Please tell me you got something." The Chief said to Cortana. "You bet'cha. The_ Compunction _is a Covenant Frigate but it's damaged." "How damaged?" "That last shot blew the plasma capacitors; he can't fire another torpedo without blowing the ship up." "What about the Pulse lasers?" "Still operational, in the main, a few are offline but not enough to provide a weak spot. Shields are currently at 50, so concentrated firepower may get through."

The Chief turned to the Admiral, "Sir, I think he's bluffing. With the amount of damage that ship has taken, I bet that last blast blew the capacitors. I'd go in close, concentrate your fire."

The Admiral only gave it a moments thought. "Helm, take us on a course that will present the maximum amount of firepower onto the enemy vessel. Launch the Raptors we have retro-fitted with missile pods, I want them bugging the hell out of that ship."

"Sir, enemy vessel is launching single-ships, several unknown classifications." "I've managed to establish myself in their DRADIS system, so I'm receiving the same feed they are. The _Compunction_has launched Banshees, Seraph's, and several Phantoms. They might try and board."

"Have our Vipers engage with the enemy fighters." The Admiral was really in his prime, the Chief thought. "Weapons, are we in range?"

"10 Seconds sir." the Lieutenant manning the console shouted. "When we're in range, give me a concentrated burst along their lateral line. Rip her in two, Lieutenant." "Aye sir." The Lieutenant was almost grinning.

The Chief was getting twitchy; he never got on well with ship to ship battles. There never was any room for a soldier such as himself in such engagements. It made him nervous.

"Sir! Major Adama reports his Vipers have engaged enemy fighters, however they appear to be guarding one particular configuration, larger but less armed."

"Reminds me when the Cylons boarded us 2 years ago," The Colonel remarked, "What do you think bill, troopship?" The Admiral glanced at the score of enemy blips that were making their way towards Galactica, but not engaging the Vipers. "Sir, we're in weapons range."

"Have our starboard side initiate the point defence firing sequence, and have the vipers try and take down those larger vessels." He started looking at a readout Gaeta handed to him. "Open fire." He said, almost as an afterthought.

"I never realised how boring fleet battles could be." Cortana commented, "Is this how you feel when you're not involved?" "You have no idea."

"Enemy ship responding with their energy beams." Several impacts and explosions rocked the _Galactica_. "Damage on Decks 9, 11 and 15. Port flight pod damaged. Casualties unknown."

"Get the fire crews over there!" The Colonel barked. The Admiral was watching the DRADIS consoles with his eyes narrowed. "Weapons, are we hitting anything?" "Yes sir, but damage is minimal. Target seems to have some sort of energy shield." "Have the Raptors find a weak spot, and try to bring the shields down, then have them relay the firing solution to you, open the gap." "Aye sir!"

"Pfft, amateurs," Cortana scoffed.

"Quiet."

The _Galactica_ was still shaking from the _Compunction's_ pulse lasers, but not as much as before. "Something's not right here Chief. Even with the amount of damage the _Compunction_ sustained, it should be doing more damage to this ship." "Maybe they're weaker then you thought?" The Chief told her. "Since when am I ever wrong?" Cortana replied, rather testily.

"Enemy ship is just off the starboard bow, now sir" Mr Gaeta reported, "It's taking heavy damage across the port-"Another huge shockwave shook the_Galactica._Mr Gaeta looked at his screen in surprise. _"_Major Adama reports that enemy ship is breaking up! Multiple explosions registered. We won sir!"

The entire CIC erupted into a chorus of loud cheering. The Admiral allowed himself a brief smile. "Well done everyone, well done. I think that's a-"

Alarm klaxons started blaring once again, and the crewmen in the CIC were at a loss as to what was going on. Mr Gaeta was talking rapidly on the intercom with someone. He looked worried.

"Sir, I'm getting reports of gunfire throughout the port side, and Athena and Racetrack can see several anomalies that look like wreckage sticking to the hull…" He looked at his screen again, and went white in the face "Sir… we've been boarded."

The Colonel smacked the DRADIS console, exchanged a quick glance with the Admiral and rushed out of the CIC. The President and her aide looked worried. The Admiral picked up the intercom, "Attention, this is the Admiral. All crews standby to repel boarders, response pattern Delta." He put down the intercom and looked squarely at the Chief. "John, report to the barracks. Get those aliens off my ship."

"Sir!" The Chief practically double-timed it out of the CIC, relishing a chance to do his part, his gaurds trailing behind.

"Told you so." Cortana teased.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Here, as promised, is Chapter 3: Condition One. It details the first fleet engagement between the Colonials and the Covanent. Tell me what you think. I hope I portrayed an encounter like this well enough in the space that i did it in. As for the story, I'm thinking of seperating it into"Arch's" or mini stories within the Saga. As such, the first "arch" (which may or may not have it's own title.) will end after Chapter 4, and Chapter 5 will see the beginning of a new "arch". (These archs will probably have no set length.) Anyway, enough from me, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.

**Disclaimer:** See Chapter 1.


	4. Stand & Repel

**The Homecoming Saga **

**Book 1: Spartan **

**Chapter 4: Stand & Repel **

The Chief could hear them up the corridor, their big, heavy footsteps reverberating all across the bulkhead.

_Dejá-vu_, the Chief mused. Once again, the Chief was hidden in a junction of the corridor, using a reflective surface to spy on what was ahead. He hefted the automatic rifle they had given him. Whilst initially it resembled the BR55, on closer inspection it was a squarer, more antiquated version of the BR55-HB. The Chief was looking forward to seeing how it handled. "It's called an SA-80." One the marines had told him, "We left all your weapons back on the wreck."

Even though the admiral had let him into the command centre, and had even asked him to help in the ship's defence, the Chief had a nagging suspicion that he wasn't fully trusted. It might have had something to do with the 3 Marines the colonel had ordered to "stick with him, and make sure the frakker stays in line." Cortana also noted helpfully that one of these marines was the one whose nose the Chief had broken earlier.

The Brutes were coming closer. Oddly enough, there were no support units, like Grunts, or shield bearing Jackals; they must not have made it off the ship. The lead Brute was hefting a spiker, whilst the two behind him had carbines. All were in full combat armour. The Chief had started signalling to the others to fan out and keep quiet, but they were either not familiar with his signals, or they were just arrogant. Either way two of them rushed round the corner and opened fire, and the only reason the third, broken-nose, didn't go round was because the Chief physically dragged him back and dumped him on the deck. "Stay down." The Chief growled.

The other two were mowed down quickly. One of them got a face full of spiker rounds, and the other got her chest melted by carbine shots.

"Oh Gods….." Broken-nose was staring at his former comrades, a look of sheer horror on his face.

"Give me your grenades." The Chief said. They hadn't even given him grenades.

"W-w-what?" There had only been one exchange of fire and already the Chief was practically on his own. He tried appealing to the man's (hopefully) drilled in professionalism. "I gave you an order soldier, give me your grenades!"

That seemed to snap him out of it, unfortunately. "Who are you to give me orders? You're not even colonial!"

"Oh dear." Cortana commented. The Chief punched the man for a second time that day, although this time, he aimed for the temple. The soldier crumpled, unconscious. "At least he'll stand a better chance at living this way." Cortana said as the chief stripped him of his weapons.

Meanwhile, the Brutes had been inching slowly up the corridor, wary of more ambushers. The Chief noticed that one of them was breathing heavily, his chest armour cracked. Not bad, the Chief thought, and looked again at his 'SA-80'.

"Chief. I've been listening in to the Colonials radio frequency, sounds like a lot of Brutes escaped off the ship. They may have been planning this all along." "Great." "A lot of fighting is taking place around the port side, especially the 'flight pod'. You need to get over there."

The Chief was now at the edge of the junction. If it weren't for his air-tight suit, he was sure he would be able to smell the Brutes by now. He grabbed one of the grenades. "Give me a minute."

The Chief lobbed the grenade; it rebounded off the bulkhead and exploded in the face one of the carbine Brutes, who looked very surprised. Before the others had had a chance to recover, the Chief had already emerged from the junction, and was firing his gun into the lead brute. The Brute fell on his back, face mangled. The remaining Brute was limping back up the corridor, firing half-blind. The Chief's shields flared as he rolled over the lead Brutes corpse, grabbed a plasma grenade, and lobbed it in the direction of the last Brute. It stuck. Roughly translated, the Brute's last words were "Damn you Demon!"

The Chief reloaded his weapon. "Where's the port flight pod?" He asked. "I think its here." A Navpoint suddenly appeared on the Chief's HUD, "I've managed to glean some schematics from the system, but that's about it. They really have this system locked up." "Just do what you can."

He double timed it down the corridor, following the waypoint Cortana had given him. The closer he got to the flight pod, the louder the gunfire became. Every now and then he would see dead crewman or marines, and perhaps the odd Brute. Things weren't going well.

Eventually he reached a junction that had been heavily fortified by the Galactica's crew. Major Adama was there, along with a squad of marines, and some crew members. Everyone nearly jumped out of their skins when they saw him. "What the frak you doing here?" "Lending a hand." He said as he fell into line.

The Chief could see the Brutes down the other end of the corridor; they seemed to be fighting on two fronts. "Is that the flight pod through there?" "Yeh, the aliens are between us and the flight pod. Our deck chief and his crew are trying to hold them off, but I don't know how much longer they can last."

The Chief looked back down the corridor. He could see the Brutes on the far side inching their way slowly inside the entrance, suggesting that the deck crew were having a hard time holding them off. "Grenades" He said.

"What?" The Major was firing his carbine down the corridor, hitting a Brute in the chest plate. "I need your grenades sir." The Chief repeated.

The Major started to frown, but then a flurry of spiker rounds and carbine shots hit the defenders, and several marines and crewman went down with a cry. The Chief saw a plasma grenade come soaring up the corridor. "Get down!" he yelled as it stuck to one of the barricades. One of the Marines tried to grab it to throw it back, only to find that his hand was also stuck to it. The explosion threw his corpse and the barricade further up the corridor.

"Ahhh Frak!! Here, take em!" The Major had a spike in one of his arms, and so had to use his good arm to release his belt clasp. "Get those ugly fraks!"

"Yes Sir." The Chief repositioned himself at the junction, glancing down to see the Brutes hadn't capitalised on the havoc they had just caused. Their last mistake, the Chief thought. "Bet you can't kill them all in less than a minute." Cortana teased. "You're on."

The Chief carefully laid the SA-80 on the deck, and pulled out the pistol they had given him. He lobbed the grenade belt down the corridor. It slid to a halt right in the middle of the Brutes, who all jumped back in surprise.

The Chief took aim, and fired a single round. The entire deck shook, and smoke started drifting down the corridor towards the Chief. Grabbing the SA-80, he ran through the smoke and Brute fire, his shields flaring. It wasn't long before he was face to face with a particularly ugly brute with no helmet. A couple rounds to the face and he was down. Grabbing two plasma grenades, he lobbed them at the flight pod entrance where he could see a couple of Brutes firing down into the deck below. Without even waiting to see what happened, he turned to another Brute who was bringing it's carbine to bear. The Chief punched it in the chest, shattering the chest plate, and then emptied his SA-80 into the beast's mid-section. Several impacts hit the chief from behind, depleting his shields. He rolled forwards, grabbed two of the dropped spikers, and turned around, firing at the two Brutes behind him. They both dropped, faces mashed by Spikes. The Chief dropped the empty spikers and picked up a Carbine, inching his way towards the flight pod. Suddenly, a wounded brute with no armour rushed out of the entranceway, it's blood curdling scream reverberating along the corridor. The Chief punched it in the face, and it went down.

"55.65 seconds, you're definitely getting better." The Chief signalled to the Major that the way was clear and he walked to the flight pod to check on the deck gang. On the way, he noticed that one the brutes was still stirring, trying to reach for a weapon. The Chief shot it in the face.

"You like going for the face, don't you? Cortana commented as they entered the hanger.

--

_"Attention! All available squads to the CIC! Enemy forces are surrounding the control centre, and are attempting to break in! Attention! All Availab-gunfire…static…." _

The Chief was walking silently through the corridors, gun at the ready, following the Major towards the CIC. After they had secured the flight deck, the transmission has come over the intercom: The CIC had fallen, and the admiral, the colonel, and the rest of the bridge crew had been taken hostage. The fighters outside were coordinating themselves, the last of the enemy fighters despatched, but without the CIC, the Galactica was blind, and at the mercy of the remaining Brutes.

"Nowart, Vennick, take the starboard entrance. Spartan, you're with me, everyone else, hold here until I give the signal." The Chief moved off with the major, round the other side of the CIC as the other marines took position. Bodies were everywhere; some looked as if they had been thrown out of the doors, which had been all blown in. The Chief and the Major took positions either side of the door, looking at the scene below. 3 Brutes holding spikers stood watch over what was left of the command crew, and the admiral was over by the main console, being held by another Brute. The Captain of the _Compunction_, Gargantum, was in front of the admiral. It looked sounded like he was trying to get him to fly the ship.

You DARE defy ME!? HUMAN!? I will slaughter your crew, feast on there flesh, all whilst you're nailed upside down to the ceiling! Now tell me how to pilot this vessel!"

The admiral was bleeding from the forehead, and clutching a wound to his side. "….Get off my ship." He said.

Gargantum scrunched his face up into a snarl, and hefted his battle hammer. "Your impudence will cost you."

Meanwhile, the Chief was figuring out how best to take out the Brutes. Grenades wouldn't be of any use this time. "What do you think?" the major seemed just as stuck as he was, and they were running out of time. "What weapons to we have?" The Chief asked. "Apart from the 80's? Not much, a few storm carbines, and some pistols, I've got some explosive rounds on me though for my carbine." "Give them to me…sir."

The Major loaded his carbine with the explosive rounds, and swapped weapons with the Chief. His arm had been bandaged and now seemed to work well enough to hold a rifle. "Tell your men on the far side to open fire on the big Brute, and then have the others come in on my signal." "You sure you know what you're doing?" Despite being in the presence of a 7 foot tall armoured giant, the major still seemed sceptical. "Trust me," the Chief said, "I kill these guys for a living."

A cry from the CIC made the Chief look back into the room. Gargantum had the admiral by the neck, holding him a couple feet from the ground. One of the bridge crew tried to rush the warchief, but Gargantum swatted him aside with the hammer. The man hit the bulkhead with a sickening crunch. Time had run out. "Now."

Gunfire erupted from the far door, and slammed into Gargantum. The big brute dropped the admiral and snarled "Get them!!" and the other brutes turned their weapons to the door. "Show time." Cortana said.

The Chief ran into the CIC, firing tracer shots into three of the brute's heads, which exploded. The Chief turned but was tackled by the remaining Brute. Gargantum was still on his feet, his personal shield flaring. "Now!" The Chief yelled. The major and the rest of the marines opened fire, pouring more shots into Gargantum. The Chief was still wrestling with the Brute who tackled him, but a couple rifle shots from the major blew him off. The bridge crew were scrambling to get out, however the colonel, Mr Gaeta and a few others had picked up, or at least tried to pick up, fallen Brute weapons and add their fire.

Gargantum was in a rage, eyeing the chief just as his shields collapsed, he raised his Battle Hammer and charged with a mighty roar. "DEEEEEMMMMOOONNNNN!!"

The Chief was not often an impulsive person, he had been raised in the military doctrines of logic, reason, strategy, and more importantly the chain of command. But lately, the events with Halo and the Covenant had changed him, in ways that, when reflected upon in private worried the Chief. This was another one of those impulsive decisions that the Chief seemed to be making more off as of late. Ignoring the fact that he was weaponless, and his enemy had a giant hammer, the Chief charged at Gargantum. As the two foes neared each other, time seemed to slow down for the Chief. He could see the individual bullets slamming into Gargantum's armour, could see the hammer begin to sweep down in a blow designed to pulp the chief, he even saw the individual beads of sweat roll of the bests face.

The hammer came crashing down. The Chief sidestepped and grabbed onto the brutes arm. The deck was pulped and the shockwave drained the Chief's shield, but he was in a perfect position. Kicking the beast in the mid-riff, the Chief wrenched the Brutes hand from the hammer. Spinning, he palmed the other hand away from its grip, and with a groan, grabbed the hammer and swung. Gargantum, quick to recover, was about to launch himself onto the Chief's back, but instead got his skull imploded by his own hammer. It had been a gift from the great War-chief Tartarus, after leading a highly successful campaign against the human's Outer Colonies. His corpse crashed into the Tactical console, smashing it to pieces.

"I was almost worried there. Almost." Cortana said, as the major lead his marines carefully into, what was left, of the CIC. "Dad? Colonel Tigh? Are you ok?" He noticed someone else amongst the survivors. "Dualla!!"

The Chief had sat down against the side of the central DRADIS console. His shield unit was damaged, and he had taken some carbine rounds to his armour. All in all, he was alive.

The admiral, supported by the colonel, limped over to where the Chief was sitting. "Thank you Master Chief, that was one hell of a Job." "For a man in a green suit, you're alright." The colonel added.

"I'm getting a warm fuzzy feeling inside." Cortana said.

--

Stars. Hanging in the dark. Clustered together, hiding. Hiding from their creators. These are no ordinary stars, made of gas, light, energy…these stars are cold. Metallic. Merciless. Other Metallic things swarm around the stars, like ants. Guarding, protecting, watching. These stars are alive. Within one of the stars, there is a room. In this room, a council has convened. Their purpose: to carry out God's Will.

"We've found them."

"Where?"

"The one they call Starbuck lead them out of our trap. They jumped."

"Where? Do they know the way to Earth?"

"We don't know, but they found something."

"What?"

"Another."

"Another Human? Is it from Earth?"

"We don't know. This was not foreseen."

"God is toying with us. We have failed him."

"We have a chance at redemption. The _Galactica_ is heavily damaged; they will have to stop somewhere for repairs. We will ambush them there, capture the other, and find the way to Earth."

"'So say we all'" They chorused, and the stars winked out, vanishing.

* * *

**Author's note:** It took a while, but here is Chapter 4: Stand & Repel. Sorry for the wait. As mentioned previously, this will be the last chapter in this introductory story arch, which i have now dubbed "Spartan". I will go back through the other chapters and edit them, taking into account feedback etc... and making it look like it's all part of one book. A little Spoiler for you, the next story arch, of a length to be determined, will be called "The Lost", and will feature the appearance of some 'old' allies and the Cylons. Another subject which i will touch upon just now is the subject of AU, or Alternate Universe. (A term i have only discovered recently, being new to FanFiction myself.) I have, and will continue to, try my best in keeping my story as canonical as possible, within reason: obviously a BSGxHalo crossover is not going to become official canon, but i have tried to only use what canonical material there is already to form my story. Unfortunately, for certain plot lines etc... to work, i may have to disregard/change certain canon facts, but i will try and make the damage small. Basically, all i hope to achieve is a story that, for all intensive purposes, is entirely plausible, that doesn't seem far-fetched, and that isn't stupidly AU. I hope i achieve that, and again, please keep you critiques coming, as i enjoy hearing from each and every one of you.

**Disclaimer:** See Chapter 1. Also note, the future story arch "The lost" bears no resemblance to the story arch of the same name in the Gaunts Ghosts series by Dan Abnett.


	5. A Glimmer of Hope

**The Homecoming Saga **

**Book 2: The Lost **

**Chapter 5: A Glimmer of Hope **

_"FTL in five… Four… Three… Two… One… Now!" _

Suspended in twilight, the ships of the _Galactica's_ rag-tag fleet of survivors jumped from the site of the recent battle, never to return. One lone raptor stayed behind, to safe guard the rear, but eventually, that too jumps, to begin again the journey home. Out of the wreckage, something moves, slowly…like a predator. It crawls carefully to the space where the fleet of ships was just occupying. It pauses, as if listening for something, and then accelerates back to its masters.

--

"Jump complete….DRADIS shows no enemy contact. Space is clear. Setting Condition two throughout the fleet."

Admiral Adama observed as Mr Gaeta and the rest of the bridge crew went about their duties. They had all had to deal with so much the past few weeks…the apparent death, and then return, of Starbuck. The blind jump out of the nebula, the discovery of the mysterious man in green armour, the aliens, the battle…so many had died, so much damage had been caused.

"Everyone seems to be coping well," a voice said from behind him.

"Madam President." Adama replied. "What a pleasant surprise."

Laura Roslin, duly elected president of the Twelve Colonies, stood beside Adama at the DRADIS console. "Well I thought I could have a chat with our green friend."

"Ah yes, John…or 'Spartan 117' as he keeps calling himself. He's spends most of his time in his room, and whenever anyone else is around, he is always in his armour. Have fun with that."

Roslin gave a thin smile, "I've dealt with worse people then a man who likes to hide behind a green suit."

"Well, there's a marine guard outside his door. Be careful."

Suddenly, the power failed and the CIC was plunged in a moment's darkness, before emergency lighting kicked in. "Gods damn it!" Colonel Tigh had just entered the room, "I thought we had this problem fixed by now?"

"Sorry Sirs. Repairs are still a little patchy. If the way is clear at the next signal location, I recommend that we set down for some proper repairs."

"Did the engineers pull anything out of the two Earth-ship wrecks?"

"There wasn't much left of the one we found the Spartan in, mainly weapons and some spare parts, but the other one he identified as the _Aegis Fate_ proved most intriguing, although again we will need to set it down to have a more thorough look."

"Are the haulers managing alright with the wrecks?"

"They give me hourly reports, so far so good. Things would be a lot easier if we still had the _Carina_ though."

As Gaeta was giving his report, the power kicked back in, and everything returned to normal.

"Carry on," The Admiral said. He turned round to speak to the president, only to find that she had already left.

--

**Mission**** Log Update **

** Date: Unknown. Estimated at ?/5/2553. **

** Status: Unknown. Day 10 aboard unknown human vessel Galactica, in unknown space. **

** Current** **Mission****: To be confirmed**.

The Chief stared at his entry. "That's a lot of unknowns," Cortana said. "I know," he replied. It had been ten days since the battle between the _Galactica_ and the _Twilight Compunction_, and the Chief had spent most of that time in the room they had given him.

"Might as well hold up in here until we can figure out what to do with you," the admiral had told him. "We'll have some-one check up on you from time to time, and we'll show you where the canteen is."

The Chief had spent a lot of the time fixing his armour. On his insistence, they had gone back to the _Dawn_ and retrieved whatever was there, and had picked up the _Fate_ when they had stumbled across it. None of the crew had made it.

The Chief was unsure about how he felt about _this_ crew. They were human, definitely, but having spent a virtual life-time fighting wars, he knew that not all humans could be friendly. They were still suspicious of him, and he of them, but in some, he could see something else: hope. He wondered what that was about.

There was a knock at the door. Despite the body sections of his armour being strewn across the floor, the Chief still had his helmet on. He liked it that way. "Come in." He said.

"I wonder whose going to visit us this time." Cortana said. She had spent the last ten day cooped up in his head, getting what data she could, and assisting him with repairs. She had grown a bit cranky. "It better not be that blond girl. She's too good for you."

It wasn't. The Chief watched as the woman called 'Laura Roslin', who was some sort of president apparantly, entered the room with the marine guard. "Thank you marine, you can wait outside." "Yes ma'am."

She turned to him and smiled. "Hello John, how are you?"

"I'm fine…ma'am. Thank you for asking."

"Good, good. We haven't really had a chance to talk since you were found; I thought we could do that now," She looked at all the body armour, "If you're not busy."

"I was just making some field repairs…I'm free to talk." The Chief went to his bunk and sat down.

Roslin paused a moment, before sitting on the single chair. "Don't you get hot wearing that thing?" She indicated his helmet.

"It's a sophisticated piece of battle armour ma'am, it regulates body temperature." Roslin looked like she was going to ask something else, but thought better of it.

"You should show her your face," Cortana said. "Let her know you're human."

"But I'm not." Taken as a young child, the Chief, like the rest of his Spartans, had been genetically altered so that they could use the MJOLNIR armour. "Not really human." He said, almost sadly.

"I know you must be a bit suspicious of us John." Roslin said "I mean we may be human, same as you, but you obviously don't know us, or of where we're from, so let me just start by just telling you a bit about ourselves."

About time someone did, the Chief thought.

"We are a group of refugee's." She began. "We come from a system of 12 planets a long way from here, what we call 'the Twelve Colonies.' Our home was attacked by a race of sentient machines, which we had originally created, called the Cylons." She paused, as if recollecting her thoughts. "There were two wars; the first one resulted in a truce, the second…the near annihilation of our race."

"The Cylons had evolved to a point were they could take human form. They used sleeper agents and infiltrators to breach our defence network….and then nuked our planets. We are the only survivors, and we've been hunted down ever since."

Sounds like what nearly happened to us, the Chief thought.

"However, there is a glimmer of hope for humanity. You see, in our society, in our Religion, in fact, we believe that our system was colonised 2,000 years ago, when our ancestors fled humanities planet of origin. As a race, humanity originates from a planet called Kobol. Now, whilst the settlers went to the twelve colonies, legends say that, 2,000 years prior to that, another group of settlers went to a thirteenth colony: Earth."

"Earth?" He didn't need Cortana to tell him that the implications of what she was telling him were staggering.

"Yes, Earth. It's the last colony left of humanity, and it's our last hope."

As she was talking, the Chief heard the _Galactica_ prepping for another jump.

"John, we've reached a critical juncture. This journey…its cost us so much, and now we found you...can you lead us to Earth? Can you lead us home?"

Before the Chief could answer, the alarm klaxons blared once again.

"The is the Admiral, all hands to battle stations. Set condition one throughout the fleet. Master Chief, report to the CIC."

_What now_? The Chief thought.

* * *

**Authors note:** Chapter 5 present and accounted for, I hope you like it. The original chapter was longer, over 3000 words, but i felt that was a little too long, at least for the moment, so I have separated it into 2 separate chapters. The next one will go up straight away though, so don't worry. This chapter begins a new arch, in which some new faces, but old friends, enter the story. More will be revealed in Chp 6. In this arch, the chief will also come to accept his 'role' as the guy who will lead Humanity's lost brothers back home. Anyway, enough of the spoilers, enjoy Chapter 5: A Glimmer of Hope.

**Disclaimer:** Same as it always it.


	6. MIA

**The Homecoming Saga **

**Book 2: The Lost **

**  
Chapter 6: M.I.A **

_"Galactica Galactica, Athena. LZ is hot, repeat. LZ is hot. Confirm drop order, over!" _

_Definitely been here before_, the Chief mused. Around him, marines were checking their weapons, and saying their prayers. Colonial or UNSC, it seemed to the Chief that marines were marines wherever you went.

_"Athena, this is Actual. Drop order confirmed. The Admiral says the Chief is gonna call the shots." _

Small arms fire impacted against the Raptor's sides, and the Chief saw a plasma blast shoot past the forward canopy.

_"Frak! Taking fire from both sides, Racetrack, Fuzzy, let's circle around and try and find a landing spot. " _

The Chief could actually hear the fighting outside. He moved behind the women designated as "Athena" and looked out of the view port. The raptors had found a clearing, and we're executing a controlled landing. The Chief could see figures moving in the shadows, and one silhouette was highlighted by a weapons flash…It looked like-

_"Incoming projectiles! Break break break! _

The Chief saw what looked like a Fuel Rod Cannon blast slam into one of the raptors, and then the world turned upside down.

--

**_Previously, back on the Galactica _**

The alarm klaxons were still blaring as the Chief and Laura Roslin entered the CIC. The Admiral, Colonel Tigh and Major Adama we're also there, and the CIC itself was a flurry of activity. "Spartan 117 reporting as ordered, sir." The Chief had decided to obey the Colonials chain of command for the moment. It made life simpler.

"Chief, madam president." The admiral was looking at several carts and print readouts. They had had to make do without a Tactical display ever since the battle in the CIC. "Along with the beacon that led us to you, we detected another, weaker beacon, which we knew was on a planet, but we didn't know what we would find."

"What's the situation Bill?" The president asked. It was Major Adama who replied this time. "Well with the tactical console in tatters, our ability to monitor what's going on outside is hampered, so as soon as we jumped I had Starbuck and Athena go out on a scouting mission. Now there's a bit of wreckage orbiting the planet, including a husk of a ship that looks similar to the ship we fought ten days ago."

_Another Covenant ship?_ The Galactica barely survived an encounter with a relatively small vessel; he hoped it wasn't anything bigger this time. "This isn't good." Cortana said. "I'm still tapped in to the DRADIS feed, the star constellations don't match anything I've got in my data banks. This can't be UNSC space."

"Covenant space?"

"Who knows?"

The Major was still giving his update. "The husk is a wreck, no activity confirmed, and we got a brief scan of the planet, and we found something interesting." He went over to another read out, and handed it to the Admiral. "Two wrecks, about a couple klicks from each other. One is similar to the husk in space; the other matches the configuration of the _Aegis Fate_, the earth ship.

"Another one? Perhaps we are on the road to Earth." The president said.

"To be honest, if all they find are wrecks, it's not going to seem like the "Thirteenth Tribe" has done any better then they did." Cortana said.

"We didn't." The Chief said, flatly.

--

"Chief! Chief! Get up!"

Cortana was yelling in his ear. The Raptor had crashed on its side, but since it had been so low to the ground anyway, the hull hadn't caved in. Two of the marines and the co-pilot we're either dead or unconscious, and the rest of the crew had bailed out, and we're firing into the forest. The scene was chaotic; plasma fire was coming in from all sides. The remaining two raptors had landed so that they formed a defensive triangle, and "Racetrack's" Raptor had had its main hatch melted by a Fuel Rod Cannon. Everyone was using the Raptors for cover, firing against the probably Covenant forces in the brush. The Chief grabbed his MA5C and his Shotgun, glad to have UNSC weapons once again. He climbed out of the hatch, and took his place in the triangle.

"Hold here!" He signalled everyone. "Keep them pinned down whilst I try and flank them." The Chief was certain he had seen rifle and machine gun muzzles flashes in the forest, so with luck, the crew of the downed UNSC ship had survived as well. If he could hook up with them, and lead a counter push, they could drive the Covenant back to their ship, and then the Chief could lift the crew to safety. If it was the crew, that is.

--

**_Previously, Galactica. _**

"Sir, permission to lead a search and rescue down to the wreck."

The Admiral looked up at the Chief. "Do you think there could be survivors?"

All the Chief could do is hope. "I don't know sir, but it's worth a shot, if there are UNSC forces down there, they could tell us where we are."

"And tell us how to get to Earth." The president could barely contain her excitement. "Bill, we have to go down and look."

"Maybe." The admiral still looked sceptical. "But I want to take the utmost caution. We were lucky to survive our last run in with these Covenant."

"I'll go alone if you want sir. I've been fighting these people my entire life, I know how to handle them."

The Colonel gave a snort. "Give a man a set of fancy armour, and he'll think he's God."

The admiral gave a smirk, "I appreciate the offer Chief, but that won't be necessary. I'll give you a small strike team. Get to wreck, see who's around, but avoid the alien vessel."

"Sir". The Chief saluted, and left the CIC to go prepare.

"John, I've tapped into their feed from the Raptor. A bit of the wreckage came from the UNSC ship and it has a serial number on it. The ship is a UNSC Destroyer, the _Death by Degrees_. It was last seen setting off from a remote outpost on the edge of UNSC space. All that is mentioned is that it was part of OPERATION: NEW LIGHT. I'll see what else I can find." "Thanks."

But Cortana hadn't finished. "One more thing, the husk shows sign of plasma damage; I think the two Covenant ships we're firing on each other." "So that means that there's Brutes here too or-"

"-or Flood."

That made the Chief pause. _Flood_. He had hoped to have been done with those things back on the Ark. But with only two out of the 7 Halo instillations known, it's possible another one could have been found, and given the trend so far, there was bound to have been flood on those instillations as well.

"Are you going to warn the Admiral?" "…no. It would take too long to explain, and he wouldn't authorise the mission."

"You really want to get down there don't you?"

"I need to stretch my legs," He lied.

--

Things weren't going well.

The Chief had been trying to get out of the circle for the past 5 minutes, but each time he was met by a storm of plasma fire and heavy ordinance. His shields had been depleted twice, and his back armour was starting to get singed. Athena and the Marine sergeant were with him and the three of them we're trying to figure out a plan of action.

"What are we going to do sir?" The sergeant asked. "Well we can't hold here, the armour on the Raptors is starting to melt under the sustained fire." Athena replied.

"We need some way of breaking of breaking the circle," the Chief started to say. Just then a cry came over the Coms. _"What the Frak is that!? It looks like a big Cylon!"_

The Chief looked over, and he groaned inside. Two Hunters had just emerged from the trees, with a score of Elites, Grunts and Jackals waiting behind them.

"They're going to rush us." The Chief said. "Sergeant, pull you men back, now! Athena, get what Raptors you can in air!"

One of the marines had loaded a rocket launcher and stepped out of cover. The Hunters fired their Fuel Rod Cannons. The marine vanished in an explosion of green energy.

"Oh Frak! Everyone, fall back! Close order! Get to the Raptor!" Athena had ordered 'Fuzzy' back onto his Raptor, who was in the process of spinning up the engines. The marines began to fall back towards the Raptor, but the barrage from the Covenant forces was increasing. Several marines fell, their light armour being easily penetrated by plasma shots or needler rounds. No brute weapons had been seen, so it didn't look like there were any Brutes around, but at that moment the Chief hardly cared. He lobbed a few grenades towards the hunters group, and poured some fire into them. Several fell, including a Grunt hefting a Fuel Rod Gun, which then exploded, felling more enemies. But the Hunters were still there.

Things really weren't going well. A near-miss from one of the Hunters arm-guns sent the Chief flying, and the second Hunter fired at the Raptor's engines, destroying the craft. Fuzzy and two others were killed instantly, and everyone else was flown flat. The Hunters charged.

The Chief rose groggily from the ground, grabbed his shotgun, and charged as well.

Once again, time seemed to slow for the Chief. Jumping over the first Hunter, he pressed his shotgun into its exposed back and fired, shredding the eel-like colony inside.

Landing on a grunt, the Chief backhanded a Jackal, sending the scrawny alien flying, and emptied another round into the face of an Elite. He was about to turn and face the second Hunter, when once again an explosion sent him flying, and the world turned to chaos. A barrage of sniper and rifle fire erupted from all sides, killing most of the Covenant forces instantly. Two rocket blasts came out of nowhere, and sent the second Hunter sprawling. It seemed help had arrived, but as the Chief got up, he noticed that most of the _Galactica's_ marines were still recovering, and those that had recovered were holding their fire.

"Sir….is…is that you sir?" A voice said behind him.

The Chief turned round.

"Are they…" Cortana said.

They were. The war with the Covenant had cost humanity dearly. Billions of lives lost as the colonies fell, hundreds of ships destroyed as fleets were decimated, and thousands upon thousands of soldiers died as they fought a losing battle. Lost lives had always filled the Chief with sadness, but nothing had hurt him as much as seeing his Spartans die. He kept a list. He always kept a list. A list of Spartans dead, of Spartans alive…and of Spartans missing. It had been so long, but he still recognized the figures before him. Dan, Roshni, Jason…..The Chief had been secretly hoping for this day, every since they had given him the news. For the first time in a long while, the Chief felt happiness, he felt relief, and most of all, he felt hope.

"Yes." He said. "It's me."

The small group of three stood up straighter, their MJOLNIR Mk IV Powered Assault Armour creaking. Their plates had been worn, beaten, cracked, and in some places lost, but they were alive.

"It's…It's good to see you again sir." They saluted. "Gray Team, present and accounted for."

* * *

**Author's note**: As promised, Chapter 6. I decided to introduce Gray Team into the story because essentially I felt it would help motivate the Chief, and it's always handy to have a little help. It was a choice between Gray team, or Blue team and the S-III's, however I decided against the latter because I couldn't find a way to write them in at this juncture, without it seeming "convenient." You'll also notice I've been changing the format around for this book, which I may do often, adding in different view points etc...although the main POV will still be the Chief's, let me know what you think. Thank you all for your reviews, keep them coming, and i hope you enjoyed Chapter 6: M.I.A

**In response to reviews already posted: **Yes I am fully aware that the Elites made peace with the humans at the end of the Human-Covanent War. If you would just wait for the next chapters, you will see why Elites are still fighting humans. Hint: This story arch is called "The Lost." Try thinking about what 'being lost' generally means. (Love you all)

**Disclaimer:** Do I really have to do this every time?


	7. Indomitable

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 2: The Lost**

**Chapter 7: Indomitable  
**

** _Date: ?/3/2553_**

**_Location: Unknown Planet_**

**_Status: En-route to UNSC survivor camp_**

"Camp Indomitable?"

The Chief and the Spartans of Gray team were sitting in a replacement Raptor sent by the _Galactica._ Having driven away the Covenant strike force, Gray team decided to lead the Master Chief and his party directly to the camp they had set up around the _Death by Degrees. _The surviving marines, under the command of the Sergeant, were being escorted by foot to the camp site.

"Yes sir." Spartan 005 'Dan' replied. "The CO at the time was trying to keep moral up. We'd already repelled a few Covenant attacks by then."

"The CO at the time?" The Raptor was flying over a patch of dense forest. The hull of the_Degrees_ could be seen up ahead, poking out through the trees.

"Yes sir," said Spartan 100 'Roshni'. "Been trapped here for over 6 months now, and we've been operating outside of UNSC space since before that...gone through a few CO's."

The Chief sat in silence. 'Boomer' had radioed the _Galactica_ informing them of the situation. New raptors had been sent to the LZ in order to pick up the wounded and the wrecked birds.

'Camp Indomitable' was at the base of a cliff. According to Gray team, the _Death by Degrees_ had been chased to this planet, and shot down. Then something happened. The two ships started fighting against each other; one was gutted in space whilst the other also crashed into the planet. The survivors set up camps around their fallen ships, and had been fighting a guerrilla war ever since.

"The early attacks we're full on. We barely survived them," Jason 027 said very matter-of-factly. "After we inflicted heavy casualties on them, they eased off, and tried to be smart about it, but then we adopted more guerrilla tactics, and the attacks were reduced even further."

"How long will it take the ground team to make it to the camp?" The Chief asked.

"Not long. We had been travelling for about 20, 25 minutes at a slow march when we encountered the covies."

A second Raptor was accompanying them to the UNSC base. It had Major Adama and a female Lieutenant called Dualla. Apparently they were married. The Admiral said that if the situation was deemed safe, he and the president would also make a trip down. As it was, _Galactica_and the fleet were currently in a holding pattern in orbit above the _Degrees._

Dan, the leader of Gray team went silent; the Chief assumed he was talking to whoever was in charge down in 'Camp Indomitable'.

As if reading his thoughts, Cortana chipped in with some info. "Spartan 005 is talking to the person in charge; apparently it's a marine Captain by the name of Greer." A normal person might have been creeped out by the fact that the voice in their head could read their mind, but to the Chief was unfazed.

"Ok sir, Captain Greer is going to meet us at the landing pad. He says he's _very_interested in knowing what you're doing here."

"That make's two of us." Cortana commented.

--

"Fuck me, it really is you!"

Captain Greer was a tall, lean man. Being trapped on this planet hadn't been kind to him, but he at least looked, if not acted fit for duty. First impressions were never the Chief's strongpoint anyway.

He saluted. "Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan 117, reporting sir."

The Captain returned the salute. "Chief, if it weren't for the fact that it would look silly, I'd be saluting you. Damn good to have you here." He shook the Chief's hand.

Major Adama, the Lieutenant, and a handful for Marines had just exited their Raptor, and were heading cautiously too the Chief and the other Spartans. They were clearly awed by their surroundings, and their first real sight of humans not from the Colonies.

The chief lowered his voice. "Sir, I also have a smart AI with me, designation Cortana. However I would appreciate it if you kept it quiet for now, I haven't told the Colonials yet."

The Captain looked the outsiders up and down. "Colonials eh? I've got to here this."

The Major and his group approached the Captain.

"Uh…Hi" The Major said.

"Considering this is an historic event for both governments, that was a pretty lame opener." Cortana teased.

"Greetings friend." The Captain said. "My name is Captain Greer, acting commander of the UNSC forces on this planet. Who might you be?"

"Major Adama, Colonial Fleet. This is my Wife, Lieutenant Dualla. Together we have the authority to represent the survivors of the Twelve Colonies of Kobol."

"Kobol eh? Where's that? Forgive me if I don't salute, the "Colonial Fleet" isn't an organisation I'm aware of."

The Major grinned. "Don't worry; I'm sure I'll live. I don't know how to describe where they are, but they are a long way from here, and we've travelled a frak of a long time."

The Captain also smiled. "You'll have to tell me about that. I understand there are more of you?"

"Yes sir," Dan chipped in. "The survivors of the wave that accompanied the Master Chief are being escorted by Sergeant Avery, they'll be here by 1800. We've got our wounded with us, but their wounded were picked up by more of those craft we came in on."

"Raptors." The Lieutenant supplied.

"Well well well," The Captain said. "This seems like an historic occasion to me. Two estranged branches of humanity, reunited on some god-forsaken patch of nowhere. I think this is cause for celebrations! Hey Parkins, break out the good stuff!"

The Chief looked at his Spartans, then back at the Captain. "Sir, we are on high alert, it's illegal to drink whilst on duty."

The Captain simply shook his head. "When you're in a situation like ours son, you tend to ignore the subtler points. Besides, it's only orange juice. We ran out of Alcohol last month."

The Captain was escorting the party back into the camp, towards what looked liked a command bunker.

"And with the extra firepower these colonials have got, we can wipe those filthy covenant off the face of this planet, and then hitch a ride home."

"There is only one problem sir." The Chief said.

"hmmm?"

"We are no longer at war with parts of the covenant sir."

"_Excuse _me!?" The Captain came to an abrupt halt. So did the members of Gray team, and just about every other UNSC personal in the immediate area. Even the Colonials looked puzzled. The Chief felt like he was on trial.

"It's a long story sir, but the Covenant had a civil war. The Elites broke off and allied with the UNSC. We're still technically at war with the Brutes, and anyone else who takes their side, but the Covenant is in tatters. The war is over sir."

There was a long, long silence.

"Well…..shit." The Captain breathed.

"My thoughts exactly sir." said Dan.

--

"Ok ok, so let me get this straight…the covenant base their tech off some ancient race, who also built these rings. The covenant wanted to use these rings for no good, but found this parasite race called the flood. Covenant made it too earth, then the flood, but then everyone took some portal to this big ring making thing, and everything hits the fan. Wars over, Covenant broken, parasites dead, and you're stranded in the middle of nowhere?"

"That's about the size of it sir."

"You just can't make that stuff up." The Captain said.

They were all sat in the camp's makeshift briefing room, reading the reports the Chief/Cortana had made of events up till now."

"So those guys we fought when we found you," the Major asked. "They were Brutes?"

"Yes."

"And those tall squid faced ones were Elites?"

"Yes."

The Captain was still frowning. "Even if what you say is true, the bunch down here still thinks there's a war on."

Cortana spoke up. "That's probably because they weren't told, or at least not all of them. I'm guessing that the two ships chasing we're a mixed Elite/Brute pair. One of them must have gotten news of the Civil war in secret, and tried to take out the other. The result being that one ship was completely destroyed, whilst the other was also stuck here. Hence why they never found out about the end of the war."

The colonials looked alarmed. "Who the frak is that?" The Major exclaimed.

The Captain smiled. "Cortana I presume, we haven't been properly introduced. It's a pleasure."

"Pleasure's all mine Captain." A miniature avatar of Cortana appeared from the make shift projector in the middle of the group.

"I'll explain later." The Chief said to the Major. He looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"Well, it will sure be a relief to hear we don't have to fight anymore, but what do we do about those guys? We can't just send them a message."

"That's where I come in sir." The chief explained. "Me and Gray team will make our way to the elite camp, and try to reason with them. Worse comes to worse, we get the _Galactica_to blow them away from orbit."

"I thought you said they were our friends?" The Captain commented.

"Friendship only goes so far."

A Marine poked his head through the door. "Avery's team has just passed the outer perimeter sir. They've got the new guys with them. They'll be here in a few minutes."

"Excellent." The Captain turned to the Chief. "You have my permission to go seek out the Elites, Chief. Just be careful. I'd hate to lose you on my watch."

"Don't worry sir, I'll be careful. Thank you sir." The Chief and gray team stood up and left the command post.

"Meet me back here in five minutes." He said. "It's time to go visit the neighbors."

* * *

**Authors Note:** Apologies for not getting this up in, like, a few months. I was struck by a mild case of writers block, and then several other things got in the way. But here it is, Chapter 7: Indomitable. Some of you were wondering in the last chapter why the Elites were still fighting humans. Well that is now partly explained here, and that little arc will be rounded off in the next few chapters. I realise this chapter may be a bit of a "come-down" from the last one, but i don't want to rush things. As hinted at the end of the last "book" The Cylons will turn up, and their will be a fight. I've not decided when that will be, or how it will play out, but things will get interesting again soon. For now, enjoy.

**Disclaimer:** You know the drill.


	8. Dominance of Virtue

**The Homecoming Sage**

**Book 2: The Lost**

**Chapter 8: Dominance of Virtue**

_**Unknown Planet  
En route to Covenant Base**_

"Enemy patrol up ahead."

The Master Chief halted, Roshni and Jason fanning out behind him. Daniel had gone ahead to scout the way. He'd been to the enemy camp countless times since they had crashed on the planet. The Chief wouldn't be surprised if he was doing it with his eyes shut.

"Three Elites, heading South." Dan's voice came over the coms channel like a whisper.

Despite the Chief and Gray Team receiving the same training, in the years since deployment, each team had developed their own signals, their own subtle way of doing things. It would take a while before the Chief 're-tuned' himself to his estranged Spartans.

It had taken them the better part of two hours to get here. The Chief had slowly begun to realise why they two parties didn't attack each other very often at the moment; it was a long way to walk simply to die.

He could see the three elites up ahead. All had blue armour and plasma rifles. The hard part wasn't taking them out and not getting killed, it was keeping them _alive _and not getting killed.

"Five, stay on station, make sure they're alone." He got a status wink for confirmation.

He signalled the other two to fan out. If all went according to plan, they would have three elites captive by the time they were finished. All they had to do after that was convince them to take them into the camp. Easy.

"You sure you've got the Elites language cracked?" he asked Cortana. "Sure as sure Chief, did you know their real name is the Sanghelii?" "Not now."

The Chief gave the signal. Roshni threw a flash bang into the centre of the group. The effects sent two flying, and made the lead Elite stagger. Before his companions had even touched the ground, the Chief was in there. In one quick motion, he had the Elite on its knees. Roshni and Jason had also rushed in, quickly disarming their marks with lighting kicks. Meanwhile, Dan kept a look-out to make sure no-one heard the commotion.

The Chief stared at his captive, "can you understand me?" He asked it. An alien snarl the only response he got.

"You're turn." He said to Cortana.

She fired up her language routines, and spoke to the enraged Sangheli. _"Warrior, we do not wish to fight. We wish to speak to you're leader. Will you hear our request?"_ Cortana hoped that she had got it right; the Elites language system was annoyingly polite and antiquated. She had already found 10 ways of insulting someone with the wrong use of the Sangheli equivalent to the pronoun "we".

The Elite tried to struggle, and snarled again; letting off a stream of snarls and clicks with its mandibles.

Cortana sighed. "He said no."

"Tell him that either he leads us to his leader so we can talk, or we kill his friends, blow off his knee-caps, and then drag him to his leader so we can talk anyway."

Cortana spoke again to the Elite. The warrior paused, and then nodded reluctantly.

"He said yes."

"Good." The Chief turned to his companions. "Secure them, and then get them on their feet. We're moving out." He signalled Dan to fall in.

Turning back to the leader, he raised his weapon.

"Take me to your leader."

--

_**Camp Indomitable**_

The Major, Dualla and their marines, along with Greer and some of his staff were milling around the landing pad, waiting for something.

Captain Greer didn't quite know what to make of the Colonials. Almost since the UNSC's inception, they had had strict first-contact protocols in place so that they could deal with any encounters with aliens. He guessed they never stopped to think that those aliens could in fact be more humans.

The Major and his team were acting like children in a toy-store. From little information they had shared so far, it was easy to assume that 'Colonial' tech was different from there own, despite being roughly the same in terms of advancement. Even their weapons looked similar, albeit they looked a lot like upgraded versions of some 21st Century weapons he had seen in a museum once.

He had to admit, thier Raptors were pretty impressive. Smaller then a Pelican, they seemed to serve a similar function, but also acted as advanced Recon units. From what he could gather, they had faster-then-light capabilities, although the Colonials seemed to not use Slipspace as their chosen method of travel.

The idea of artificial intelligence seemed to creep them out a bit. The AI that was on the _Death by Degrees _had only partially survived the crash, storing fragments of itself in as many storage devices it could find. What was left was a shadow of the machines former self, only able to perform base functions like perimeter defence. Still, Greer has decided to keep its presence a secret for now. He still remembered the Major's face when he had seen Cortana.

With the Chief and Gray team out on their mission, he didn't quite know what to do them. The Major had mentioned something about a "President" and the "Admiral", and so Greer assumed he would be getting more visitors.

He sighed. It wasn't that this was an inconvenience, hell, the arrival of the Chief and these new-comers had raised spirits about the camp, and it gave them something else to think about. With the recent skirmish over, the Covenant were unlikely to launch another attack for at least a week, maybe more.

The only problem was, he was becoming surrounded with people who were clearly more important than him, and he didn't know what to do. How do you respond to a President of a government you've never heard of? They definitely hadn't trained him for this.

The Major spoke up. "They're on their way. Raptor should be here in a few minutes."

Greer nodded. "So this President…he's what, the head honcho?"

The Major smiled. "Yes, _she _is. There's only around 30,000 of us left, and she is the elected president of all of them."

"30K? what happened?"

"The Cylons happened," he said.

Greer decided that he didn't want to know who the Cylons were.

--

_**Bridge of the Galactica**_

Colonel Tigh paced the bridge.

With the Admiral gone, it was up to him to make sure everything went smoothly whilst he was planet-side. Even though they hadn't seen the Cylons since the Ionian Nebula, he didn't for a moment think they had seen the last of them. And now they seemed to being chased by these aliens as well……

The Colonel rubbed his eye-patch. He didn't quite know what to make of the Chief. Sure, he was handy in a fight, but the Colonel found it hard to trust a man who wouldn't step out of his suit. If he even was a man.

Dark thoughts rumbled his mind.

_Man? Who are you to criticise someone for not being a man? Cylon…._

He stopped.

It had been only a few weeks since he had been hit with that revelation. Anderson, Tory, Chief Tyrol….they had all been hit with it…. but why? Why _them? _Why _now?_

"Sir? Is everything alright?" Lieutenant Agathon was acting XO whilst everyone else was ground side. The Colonel hadn't realised he had been talking.

"Hmmm? I'm fine Helo, what you got for me?"

"Dradis is picking up some strange blips just inside our range. Could be Raiders sir."

"Launch a Raptor, and send Starbuck out with it. Go take a peak."

Helo paused, "Starbuck sir? Are you sure?"

Tigh grimaced. "I don't care if she's a zombie, or a toaster, or just frakking miraculous: she's alive now. Might as well make her useful. Carry on Lieutenant."

He resumed his pacing, his thoughts continuing to rumble around his mind like rocks.

_Cylon….._

--

_**Covenant Base**_

"They don't look happy to see us," Cortana commented.

The Chief and his team had reached the enemy perimeter not long before. Unlike the UNSC base, there were no automated turrets. Instead, scores of Elites, and the odd Grunt and Jackel manned a constant watch on the "border". The Chief had gone ahead with his Elite, and had Cortana broadcast to the guards that they wanted to talk. Curiously, they let them through, although a large group of heavily armed elites had been shadowing them for the past 4 minutes.

Now the group of Spartans we're entering a wide clearing of what must have been the Covenant main camp. The Chief saw an exceptionally tall elite in faded, battered silver armour, flanked by two Hunters and a score of heavily armoured Elites.

Must be their leader, The Chief mused.

"You know, if this doesn't work, they probably won't let us out alive."

"You're optimism knows no bounds."

"Both of you, can it."

Stranded all this time... I've got to do something about their discipline...

By this time, the Spartans were standing just in front of the silver Elite's group. At a signal from the Chief, they all released their prisoners, who immediately turned on their capters and started snarling. The Silver Elite emitted a short bark and the ex-captives slowley backed away towards the safety of their group.

"Tell the silver guy we just want to talk," The Chief whispered to Cortana.

Before she could speak however, the Silver giant spoke first:

"I can understand you Daemon, there's no need to use that inferior translator of yours. What do you want."

Cortana was almost indignant, "Inferior Translator? Can we shoot him?"

"No."

The Chief signalled the other Spartans to lower their weapons as he addressed the leader.

"We've come to negotiate a truce."

The Silver Elite didn't seemed phased by this statement, but the rest of the Covenant forces started chatting in what the chief assumed was surprised tones. Another bark from Silver quietened then.

"Go on," He said.

"You may have noticed there's another ship in orbit..."

Silver cut him off.

"If you mean to threaten us into submission, then perhaps we should just kill you and display your flayed corpses to your kinsman. Morale is a double edged blade."

"That's not what I mean't: I have news."

Silver paused at this.

"...News?"

"Yes. I've come from known space. The war between the UNSC and the Covenant is over."

This brought more surprised tones from those who could understand, who then quickly translated for those who couldn't. Silver had to bark louder to keep order.

"Over? Where we victorious?"

Here comes the complicated part...

"Not exactly."

--

_**Bridge of the Galactica**_

Colonel Tigh had been looking at the main DRADIS console for the last ten minutes. Something was wrong, he could feel it, but he just wasn't sure what.

"Helo, has Starbuck found anything?"

"No sir, nothing to report."

Tigh sighed and turned away from the console, scratching his head.

_Maybe I'm just imagining things..._

"Sir, DRADIS Contact! Starbuck has spotted Basestars jumping in on the far side of the planet. They're heading our way!"

_I knew it! Frakking Toasters..._

In an instant, Saul Tigh was transformed into the Colonial Fleet officer he sometimes forgot he was. His mind focused, and he gave out several orders in quick succession, whilst surveying the tactical situation.

"Launch the alert fighters. Set Condition one through-out the ship. Tell the fleet to make an emergency jump, and move us closer to the planet."

He studied the DRADIS console, looked at the estimated position of the Cylon Basestars in relation to the Galactica, and the geographical location of the human outpost. It didn't look good.

"And contact Lee and those other guys down their. Tell them to get the Frak out."

"So the war is truly over?"

"You could say that. The Brute faction is probably still at large in your area of the Galaxy, but for the moment, the war between the 'Covenant' and the UNSC is over."

The Chief and Silver were not sitting down in the clearing, the rest of the Spartan and Covenant forces also lounging all around them. The Chief had spent the better part of half an hour explaining the whole situation.

"The Brutes I can understand turning against the rest of the collective...but the Prophets? How could they have fallen so?"

"Who knows, but this 'Great Journey' of theirs was just one big lie. I would have killed us all."

"So you say, and another Arbiter was chosen?"

"Yes, he's now a Hero to your people as I understand it."

Silver contemplated this in silence.

"How do I know you are telling the truth, Daemon?"

"I was created for war, not story telling."

Silver gave a small chuckle, and stood up to address is warriors.

"Then today is a glorious day indeed brothers. The war is over, and we can go home again!"

There was a general roar of approval. The Chief was quietly surprised at this.

_I guess even they get tired of fighting..._

Silver turned back towards the Chief, who stood up and faced him.

"I have not properly introduced myself: I am Qual'a Soomamee, Ship Master of the _Dominance of Virtue."_

He held out his hand. A very human gesture.

"Master Chief. Daemon"

"Well Daemon, you may leave in peace. Whilst the war may be over, we have been fighting far too long to simply cast aside the events of the past year. Your friends put up an honourable fight, much to our cost. You'll understand if we don't come to wish you farewell."

"Likewise. Our other ship will start picking up the survivors. I just wanted to make sure that it would happen without interference."

"You have my word."

The Chief was about to leave when Cortana piped up;

"Chief, something's wrong."

He could here a kind of screeching noise and explosions in the distance, and he looked up to see what looked like a battle raging in space. The Galactica had manouvered closer to the planet, and was now exchanging blows with ships the Chief couldn't see.

He was about to to turn back to the Ship Master when someone tackled him to the ground. Above him, two weird looking fighter craft shrieked by, followed by two who were slower and looked like giant flying bricks. Explosions rippled all around them as the unknown assailants let loose a torrent of air-to-ground ordinance.

The Ship Master was busy organising the evacuation, and he signalled the Chief and his group to make a run for it.

"Run Daemon! We will try and distract them!"

The Chief nodded and jumped to his feet into a run. Dan, Jason and Rosh followed him in, and they all plunged back into the forest.

Dan came up beside him, struggling to keep up with the Chief's superior strides.

"I thought you said the war was over?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know it's been a while, in fact I can't even remember when I last updated, but here it is: Chapter 8. The Cylons have turned up, and now the weary survivors in all camps must flee before they are a destroyed. I hope you enjoy it. I've started to get back into this now so hopefully it won't take as long to get to Chapter 9, but no promises. Grammer etc... might be a bit sketchy in this one, because it's been sitting on my Hard Drive for so long. This section of the wider story will either end in Chapter 9 or 10, I haven't decided yet. As always, any questions, feel free to ask.

**Disclaimer:** As always I do not own anything to do with either the Battlestar Galactica or Halo worlds, and these are purely works of fiction losely based on the two universes. Also, my story is obviously not taking into consideration the events of Season 4 of BSG, which, by the way, was quite good.


	9. Evacuation

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 2: The Lost**

**Chapter 9: Evacuation**

"Chief! Too your left!"

He had just enough time to duck before the tree he was running past exploded into splinters. The Master Chief grabbed his last plasma grenade, courtesy of the Ship Master, and lobbed it at whatever it was that was perusing them.

The Chief had never seen anything like them before. Despite the fact that the UNSC unilaterally enlisted the aid of numerous Artificial Intelligences in order to maintain human holdings, they hadn't quite made the leap from program to machine.

The 7 foot tall humanoid cyborg stared dumbly at the glowing ball of plasma attached to his arm, before disintegrating into nothing.

Having fled the Covenant camp, the mysterious airborne assailants had followed them into the forest. One of the the strange craft had gone on ahead of them, and landed in the same clearing where the Spartans had met the Elite patrol. It must have been some kind of troop transport, because out of thin air a dozen walking robots had appeared.

It didn't take the Spartans long to figure out regular bullets didn't phase them much.

Jason and Dan suddenly found themselves face to face with one of the metal behemoths. Using his enhanced reflexes, Jason smashed one of the robot's guns out of the way with his arm. Meanwhile Dan grabbed the machine by the shoulders and, having launched himself up in the air, drove his knee through the head unit.

The thing's head smashed into another robot coming up behind it, and the two collapsed into heaps.

"Well, these guys ain't that tough-" Dan was about to say before a torrent of bullets sent him diving for cover.

"Chief," Cortana reported, "there's a signal coming in from the Camp. It's Greer."

The Chief and Roshni were behind some boulders. Roshni had taken some bullets to a weak part of her armour, and had lost feeling in one of her arms. He couldn't remember ever being in armour like this, but he had. A part of him was glad he had shields.

"We're a little busy here!"

"I know, but he says it's important."

_I bet it is..._

The Chief signalled Dan and Jason, and the four of them once again started running through the forest.

"Put him through!"

Overhead, the other enemy fighters were busy dogfighting with the Viper's from _Galactica, _and the chief even thought he saw a couple of banshee's joining in the fight.

Captain Greer's stressed and animated voice bleared through the Chief's headset.

"Chief!? Where the hell are you!? We're being straffed by some weird looking fighters. Those 'Colonials' of yours have hopped it! Their bigwigs were here all of five minutes-"

Greer's voice was drowned by explosions, although he wasn't sure if they were from Greer's end or his.

"-I'm all out of idea's here Chief, what do you recommend?"

The Chief had to duck as another robot appeared in front of him. He palmed the raised rifle-hand out of the way and moved in close the machine. Using his elbow, he sent the it flying into a nearby tree, and continued running.

"Do you have any space-worthy evac ships?"

"Yeah, we hid and maintained some pelicans in case another ship turned up."

"Break em out, and get all of the non-essential personnel out of here. Tell them to head for the ship hovering above the plant."

"You mean the one that looks like a whale?"

The Chief didn't have time to respond. He barely had time to do anything. The Viper that crashed into him was travelling to fast.

--

_**Camp Indomitable**_

"Chief!? Chief!!"

Greer threw down the receiver, cursing loudly as he did. Outside of the command tent, everything was in chaos. The weird looking enemy ships were buzzing all around them, sending men and materials flying everywhere.

To top it off, they were being assaulted from all sides by 7 foot robots. Greer couldn't help but think this was something out of a science fiction flick...

"Captain Greer! We've got the Pelicans on standby!"

Greer picked up the receiver once more, and spoke into the camp-wide frequency.

"This is the Captain, all non essential personnel fall back to the Pelicans, I repeat, all non essential personnel fall back to Pelicans. Prepare for emergency Evacuation. Marines, fall back to the second defensive line."

He turned to his aide. "Launch the two Longsword as well, have them fly cover..."

Greer steadied himself as several missiles hit just outside. He then grabbed a rifle from under the desk.

"And someone contact the _Galactica_, tell them to make some room!"

--

_**Bridge of the Galactica**_

Colonel Tigh was over by the Tactical console when the Admiral and the President entered the CIC. The battle had been raging for over half an hour by now, and things weren't looking good. After some initial exchange in volleys, the Baseships had taken up position around _Galactica_, but had not opened fire.

Since then, the _Galactica_ had been fighting off enemy Raiders and Heavy Raiders who were attacking the camp below.

"What's the situation Saul?" The Admiral was looking at the main DRADIS screen.

"It's like New Caprica all over again Bill," Tigh walked over the where the Admiral was standing.

"The Cylons are landing all over the place, and our birds can barely keep themselves alive let alone provide air support."

"Why aren't the Baseships firing at us or the camp?"

"My guess sir is that they want to take some alive. If these people really do know the way to earth, then it'd be easier to capture some of them then to follow us around. As for the Galactica, we're directly above the camp. They shoot us down and everyone is frakked."

"How's the camp holding up?"

"They're hanging in there from what we can tell, but they've never encountered Cylons before. They must be spooked."

"Maybe not," Lee Adama walked into the CIC, followed closely by Dualla. Lee had a grave look on his face.

"Dad, it's about the Chief, we may have a problem-"

"Admiral! Transmission from the camp!" Helo turned round in his seat, a confused look on his face.

"They say they're sending up 'Pelicans' and that we should 'make room'"

The Admiral looked over at Helo, eyebrow arched.

"What the hell is a 'Pelican'?

Several 'Unidentified' dots appeared on the DRADIS, heading towards the _Galactica_.

"I think we're about to find out..."

--

_**Camp Indomitable**_

Corporal Bill "Shifty" Skyes was starting to panic.

No matter how many clips they emptied into the robots, they didn't go down. Luckily, the heavier rounds from the gun emplacements seemed to keep them at bay, but they were fast running out of ammunition.

He was hiding behind one of the redoubts when a mortar round impacted on the other side of the wall and sent the whole section, along with him, flying. He couldn't feel his legs.

"Sparky! Go dig out those covie weapons! Maybe they'll do the trick!"

He took out his pistol as two other marines picked him up by his shoulders and carried him to the next redoubt.

He dragged himself to the top of the sandbags so that he could have a peak. The metal monstrosities were lurking in the tree line, whilst the two HMG's either side of him were keeping them pinned.

Judging by the peculiar lack of feeling in his legs however, they must have brought up some heavier gear. He would have to respond in kind.

"Wes! Get the JackHammers!"

But before 'Wes' or even 'Sparky' returned from their respective errands, something peculiar happened. He couldn't see very well because of all the smoke, but it looked like the robots were looking the other way.

"What the..?"

Shifty watched as several muffled explosions emanated from the enemy lines, and what looked like a severed robot-head soared through the air and landed right next to him.

He looked at it for a second, before looking back towards the forest. The HMG's had stopped firing, their gunners staring opened mouthed at the 4 figures who were limping out of the forest. The Master Chief, being supported by Dan, limped past where the Corporal was staring at him.

Dan nodded at the man as they carried on towards the camp.

"Hows it going?"

--

"This is taking too long."

"I agree, we're losing valuable time and resources."

"Some of the unknowns have boarded the _Galactica. _Capturing one for interrogation is becoming a difficult."

"What of the first one?"

"Still on the surface. The Centurions have reported that he is now inside the game, with the others."

"We don't need them, any human will do. We should just nuke the planet and force the _Galactica_ to hand over the ones they've got."

"Agreed."

"Agreed."

"The first one should be taken alive. I feel God revealed him to us for a reason."

"We don't have time for this, if he's really a prophet of God, he'll live through this. Beside, there are others..."

"Very well..."

--

_**Camp Indomitable**_

Greer ran over towards the weary group of Spartans, a squad of marines at his tail.

"Good to see you again chief, we thought we'd lost you."

"Not a chance," The Master Chief stood up to his full height, wincing as he did so.

"What's the situation sir?"

"Looking better, we've broken out some of the captured Covenant weapons we posses, and that seems to be doing a better job against these machines. They won't last forever though, and our gun emplacements are using up the last of our ammo quick. I don't know how much longer we can last."

"Have you contacted the _Galactica_?"

"We warned them they would have incoming, but they haven't responded. We don't even know if our boys made it up there safely. Too much interference now."

The Chief was about to suggest Cortana have a go, but she instead hacked into the camp wide frequency and yelled, "Everybody! Get into a bunker! NOW!"

The Chief looked up, and watched as the sky rained fire.

--

...

...

UNUSUAL SEISMIC ACTIVITY DETECTED ON SURFACE. COMMENCE SCAN

...

...

ORGANIC LIFE FORMS DETECTED AT POINT 057.9, POINT 040 AND POINT 057 ORBITAL SPACE

NON-ORGANIC DEVICES DETECTED WITHIN THE 057 AREA

UNKNOWN ORGANICE LIFE FORMS DETECTED WITON 057 ORBITAL SPACE

ANALYZING

...

...

...

TREMOURS INDICATE HOSTILE ACTIVITY BETWEEN TWO OR MORE PARTIES

INVESTIGATING

...

...

...

...

!ALERT!

ORGANIC LIFE FORMS AT 057 IDENTIFIED!

RECLAIMER LINEAGE CONFIRMED!

ACTIVIATE DEFENSE PROTOCOLS!

DEFEND RECLAIMERS AGAINST UNKNOWN ASSAILANTS!

...

...

I MUST CONTACT BINARY REMORSE. IT WILL WANT TO KNOW THAT THE LINEAGE HAS SURVIVED...

* * *

**Author's Note: **Here it is, Chapter 9. A more action filled chapter this one. As you can see, the Cylons have become impaitent with the current situation, and has decided to bombard the camp, which has awoken something deep beneath the planet. Don't worry, not as many people will die as you may think. The UNSC personel had constructed the camp with the possibility of the covenany simply wanting to glass them out of existence, and so made preperations accordingly. I'm not quite sure if the timing of everything will add up though, so if you think sometime is a bit off, let me know so i can fix it. Also, due to the feedback, I've made some changes to a previous chapter so it better helps drive a sub plot that will be appearing in the next one or two chapters. I hope you enjoy this chapter, and stay tuned for Chapter 10: Sacrifice.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything to do with either the BSG or the Halo franchise, nor is my fan fiction a fully accurate representation of either universe. Also, my fan fiction has now further entered the realms of AU, due to the events of Season 4 of BSG, and the up-coming Halo titles by Bungie.


	10. Entity

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 2: The Lost**

**Chapter 10: Entity**

"_Adama, Roslin, we know you can hear us. You know there's really no reason to keep on fighting, we want what you want: peace. Now, I understand you have some of the earth born on your ship. As you can see, we've had to wipe out the rest of them because they wouldn't see reason, which is a shame. _

_Hand over the ones who are cowering on the Galactica and we promise we'll let you go free. After all, we won't need you any more now will we?_

_You have one hour..."_

------------------------

_**Camp Indomitable**_

If someone had asked the Centurion if it enjoyed traipsing through a forest on some random planet looking for flesh-skins it didn't know, the Centurion probably would have said no.

The point was moot however, since the Centurion wouldn't have in a position to reply anyway. In order to ensure that their robotic 'allies' didn't rise up and slaughter them like they had done the humans, the humanoid Cylons had installed slave circuits into both the old and new model Centurions, ensuring obedience.

Although, that's not to say the Centurion had to be happy about it.

The metal soldier, standing at well over 6 feet, surveyed the scene before him with his V-shaped optical sensors. The ground before it was smouldering and flattened, like someone had run a flaming bulldozer over the entire area, and then chucked in some napalm just for good measure.

To a flesh-skin, even a Cylon, the scene would have been moving, provoked some sort of electrical impulse from within the flesh-brain that they called 'emotions', but to the Centurion, the scene was merely logged, filed, and transmitted back the central hub aboard the BaseStar.

The funny thing was the Centurion knew that the dead landscape before it should have provoked a response, and it could even remember a time when such a sight _would_ have provoked a response. Yet, the very same slave circuit that was not quite good enough to turn the Centurions into mindless drones prevented them from actually pondering over the fact that they weren't mindless drones.

If the slave circuit didn't prevent the Centurion from doing so, it probably would have found the quandary amusing.

The Cylons had bombarded the human's camp for 15 minutes until they relented and now kill teams of Centurions and hybrids were scouring the camp, seeing if anyone was alive to capture and/or kill. None of hybrids had put much stock in the colonials actually handing over the Earth-flesh without a fight, so they were hoping some had survived the (non-nuclear) bombardment.

The Centurion began its sweep of the camp ruins along with the others in its unit. It found scores of dead corpses, some smouldering, some not. They were wearing similar clothing to that the colonial-flesh would wear, although it was different. Everything about the Earth-flesh was different. He came across items that were alien yet familiar, and had it the time or the free will, it would have liked to have studied them a bit, as would his fellow Centurions.

It looked over to see a group of flesh-born – a Leoban, a Cabel, and some 'Sixes', arguing over something that it guessed was important, but again lacked the higher brain functions to contemplate. However, its slave programming decided that it was probably wise to move closer, in case the argument turned violent.

"-should investigate all the same."

"What? And risk war with yet another race? You saw the scans Leoban, their technology is so different than ours, and possibly even more advanced."

"Still, I believe God brought them here at the same time as us for a reason."

"God wants us to find Earth, that's it. Those...things... over there are just a coincidence. He can't control everything."

"Careful what you say, Cabel, for you could be accused of blasphemy."

The Cabel narrowed his eyes at the Sixes, and then looked at the Centurion as it walked slowly closer to the group.

"Just stick to the plan, all of you."

He turned round and walked towards a Heavy Raider that had just landed in the ruins of the campsite.

The Sixes and Leobans watched him go.

"I'll make my way towards the aliens, pretend to be one of the Humans. I'll report back in an hour."

"Be careful," The sixes commented as Leoban walked off into the forest.

The Centurion merely filed the incident into its memory banks.

---------------------------

"Something's wrong."

"I know - Leoban disobeyed my orders. I've got a Heavy Raider tracking him."

"Not that."

"What?"

"We've lost contact with some of the patrols."

"So they've met resistance and died like fodder. That's what we designed them to do."

"Something's different this time, I don't like it."

"Well luckily for you, we don't dictate policy over an individual's 'feelings'."

"The other Eights are in agreement – something is wrong."

"Something is _always_ wrong..."

-----------------------------

_**North of the Camp**_

The Centurion was busy checking out the forest north of the camp when it noticed something odd.

It was a flesh-born.

That in itself even the Centurions limited processing capacity recognised wasn't especially cause for concern. The 6mm hole in the flesh-born chest was however rather intriguing. It did a scan of the wound, the data seemed to indicate that the injury was made with a super-heated beam of light, much like a cutting laser, just bigger.

Its sensors indicated that something was approaching from the rear. Extending its auto cannon from one of its arms; the Centurion spun around and confronted the would-be assailant: what it saw floating towards it was even more intriguing then the wound.

The Centurion tried to use its scanners to get a better profile of the entity, but found that its beams were being rebounded off the unknown's metallic hide. The Centurion guessed that it was about the same width as a flesh-born's torso, and about twice as long, and reminded the Centurion of a metallic beetle insect.

The entity floated closer to the centurion, its single blue eye fixated on the Centurion's red optical band. It didn't quite know what to do. Ever since they had been upgraded from the older 0005 models, their ability for actual speech had been removed. Instead, Centurion's conversed with each other using electronic signals located in the head casing, although they were able to accept verbal commands as well.

The Centurion tried sending such a signal to the unknown, but to no avail. The entity floated a little closer.

The Centurion tried to signal some of its unit-others, but for some reason was unable to reach them, and it was at that moment that the entity decided to speak. The Centurion froze up as it detected an invasive signal coming from the entity. It tried to throw up some firewalls, but failed. It sensed the entity ploughing through the Centurion's memory banks, its schematics... the entity even decided to remove the inhibitor.

WHO ARE YOU?

The Centurion quivered as the strange message permeated its entire being. With the inhibitor removed, the Centurion started to feel the first semblances of the 'panic' emotion – it couldn't understand the strange entity, couldn't communicate with it, and now was very very scared of it.

WHO ARE YOU?, it said again.

The Centurion tried to send a message to the entity, tried to assure it it meant no harm, whether that would actually turn out to be the case was another matter entirely. The Centurion's processor pushed itself to its limits to try and get through to this angry, hostile force that had control over it. It finally managed to hack into the signal that was emanating from the entity...

Whilst it had been the Centurions who had beleived in the 'one' God, they had never really attributed this diety any kind of avatar or image, however, if they did, then this entity would have come awfully close. It was ancient, it was beyond comprehension, and it was magnificent. The Centurion could only sense surface code and directives, but even those were far beyond its understanding.

UNKNOWN ENTITY HAS FAILED TO IDENTIFY. CONSIDERED HOSTILE. TERMINATE IMMEDIATLY.

There was so much it could learn from this machine-god, the Centurion realised, oblivous to what the entity had said. It was a shame, then, that the entity decided to burn a 6mm hole through the warrior-frame's central processing unit.

---------------

_**Camp Indomitable**_

Weary, bruised, battered, but certainly not beaten, the Chief and his fellow Spartans emerged from the underground bunker that the survivors had made for themselves. When the _Death by Degrees_ had crash landed onto the planet, it had ploughed right into the foothills where the camp was now located, which meant that part of the ruined ship was underground. In the months since, the surviving crew had dug out a shelter within, in case the Covenant tried to glass them out of existence. There was no way of telling if it would work, but it was worth a shot.

"Did everyone make it inside?" The Chief asked.

"I'm afraid not Chief," Roshni said from behind him. "Standing orders when a bombardment is imminent during combat operations are that every other odd-numbered person manning a defensive line, plus one NCO or above, have to stay behind to give the others a chance to escape."

The Chief could almost sense Cortana shaking her head.

"That's a little arbitrary isn't it?"

Roshni shrugged, "The numbering was swapped every so often, it helped with morale because it mean't soldiers weren't always the potential scapegoats."

Sweeping their weapons across the burned ruins of the camp, the four Spartans crept tentatively out into the open.

"Strange," Cortana commented. "There were Cylons all over the place ten minutes ago. Where did they all go?"

Even the big square ship that ferried some of the skin-jobs down to the planet had disappeared.

"I've been trying to hack into the signal the metal warriors use to contact each other, but I'm having difficulties."

That made the Chief pause, "Difficulties?" The Chief hadn't remembered Cortana having any difficulties when it came to signals and technology, even Covenant.

"I know, but there's something different about these signals. It's more basic then simple transmissions, nearly instinctive. I'm close though, don't worry."

"Good, let me know when you have something."

With the immediate area seemingly clear, the Chief turned round and signalled back to the shelter. Greer, his aide and four marines emerged from the entrance and approached the Spartan team.

"What have we got Chief?"

"The Cylons have disappeared, and we're not sure were. It's possible they've gone to check out the Covenant camp."

"Right, we'll use the break to try and get the rest of my men out, can the _Galactica_ provide us cover?"

"Let's find out. Cortana?"

"Way ahead of you Chief."

-------------------------------------------

_**Galactica**_

"What?"

Admiral Adama was looking at Lee with a serious frown on his face.

"And you say this voice emanated from the chief?"

"Yeah, and then the image of a woman appeared on the desk. Some sort of holographic image."

"And you think you this 'woman' was an artificial intelligence?"

"Sure looked like it."

Colonel Tigh made a 'tsk' sound and shook his head.

"By the Gods, if this AI's been with the Chief this whole time, there's no telling what it's been up to. Hell, it could have lead those Covenant or the toasters right frakking too us."

The Admiral looked from Lee to Saul, and back to Lee.

"Let's not jump to conclusions. The Chief helped us out of a tight spot recently, so we owe him the chance to explain himself. But just to make sure, try and dig out Baltar's old Cylon detection equipment, do a few tests on those refuges we've brought on board."

Behind him, Helo turned round from the communication's desk.

"Admiral, transmission from the planet... it's the Chief."

The Admiral looked over at Saul and raised an eyebrow.

"Put him on..."

---------------------

_**Camp Indomitable**_

"...and you're sure the area is secure."

"As secure as we can make it sir, just send the Pelican's down if you want, no need to risk your own ships."

"That's very considerate Chief, but we'll be fine. I'll send some Raptors and the Pelicans back down right away."

There was a pause, and the Chief thought the Admiral was about to say something else.

"Good luck Chief."

The line went dead.

_Weird_, the Chief thought, but he shook it out of his mind and turned back to Greer.

"Birds are on their way, best start getting everyone out. I'll set up a perimeter with whatever marines we have left."

Greer nodded, "Thanks Chief, I won't forget this."

The Chief nodded as he turned to leave._ It's the Galactica who we should be thanking now, _he thought._ Our fate now rests with them_.

The thought didn't exactly fill the Chief's heart with joy. He slowed as Dan came running towards him.

"There's fresh sign of struggle up ahead, along with some skin-job corpses. They all have strange circular holes in them. We can also hear fighting going on around us, no idea who though."

Something about the news filled the Chief with a sense of dread.

"Cortana, tell me you have something."

"Just about... I've finally managed to hack the robot-form's communication signal, and I'm tuning into one of them now, I'm going to be showing you what it's seeing."

The Chief remained motionless whilst his view became fuzzy and was replaced by a red tinted view of the forest. Weird numbers and statistics scrolled along one side, and what looked like a targeting reticule was sweeping the tree line ahead.

"Do we know where this one is?"

"About a kilometre ahead of us. Most of the Cylon forces seem to have moved that way."

The Chief watched on silently as the Metal-form moved slowly through the forest, its gun sweeping left to right as it searched for something. A skin-job in the form of a bald dark-coloured man was accompanying it, and together they traipsed onwards.

The skin job was talking, but for some reason the Chief couldn't understand what was being said.

"Why can't I hear the humanoid?"

"It's something to do with an inhibitor that all of these metal-forms – Centurions – have within their programming. It restricts higher brain functions and stops them from being truly sentient. This unit may hear what the skin-job is saying, but it can't comprehend, and so we can't comprehend either. I can't risk removing the inhibitor without it noticing."

Before the Chief could say anything else, the Centurions vision went blurry as it tracked something hurtling though the air. It was the head of another Centurion.

_What the..._

As the Centurion searched frantically for what had destroyed one of its kind, a blinding flash of light obscured its vision. It looked down to see the black humanoid Cylon lying dead at its feet, a smouldering black hole in its chest.

The Centurion's vision looked up to see a small floating shape turning towards it, its single eye blazing brightly as it deactivated it's beam weapon.

The Chief gripped his gun tightly. He knew that shape. He knew it all too well, and now he also knew that things had just gotten a hell of a lot worse.

"Sentinels!" Cortana exclaimed.

Besides him, the other Spartans looked at each other with confusion.

"Sentinels? What are they?"

The Chief didn't reply. He kept on watching the feed as the Sentinel turned and faced the Centurion. The metal warrior raised its two auto cannons and let loose, but the shots were merely absorbed by the superior machine's shields. Its eye blazed brightly again, and another beam of light shot towards the Centurion. The view disappeared, leaving the Chief staring once again at the Forest ahead of him.

_You've got to be kidding me..._

_

* * *

_**Author's Note: **So here we are again, another chapter... how many months has it been? I apologise once again, but I can't promise to keep updating this regulary. Sometimes I just don't have the time. Although leaving gaps between chapters isn't always the wisest of things - I noticed that in Chapter 9's AN, I said I had changed something earlier in the story to help fuel a future sub plot. I can't remember what I changed or what that Sub-plot might be :S but oh well, life goes on, as does this story. Not as much happened in this chapter as I initially thought it would, so I decided to make this more of a 'filler' chapter and rename it. The origional Chapter 10 - 'Scarifice' - will probably be made into the next chapter, or the one after that. You'll noticed I did something different with this chapter, and took a lot of liberties with the Centurions. I did my research, but at the end of the day I was using my creative license to be... well... creative! I wanted to do it when I came down to write this chapter, as i found it an interesting experience. I hope you enjoyed it. I'll try to have Chapter 11 up quicker then this one got up. As always, feedback and questions are always welcome!

**Edit: **Chapter has been edited a bit due to something I remembered from the series, and to improve the flow a bit better. As time goes on, I'll probably do this a lot, although I may not inform you that I'm doing it.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own anything to do with either the Halo or the BSG universes. Also, this fanfiction does not take into account the events of Season 4 (first half and second) nor does it take into account the events of the recent Halo book 'The Cole Protocol'. This is an AU crossover. Enjoy.

ENTITY HAS FAILED TO IDENTIFY CONSIDERED HOSTILE TERMINATE IMMEDIATLY!


	11. Sacrifice & Author's Note Fin

**The Homecoming Saga**

**Book 2: The Lost**

**Chapter 11: Sacrifice**

_**Galactica CIC**_

Admiral Adama looked up from the latest tactical reports to the DRADIS screen. It had been nearly ten minutes since the Cylon's deadline had passed, and still nothing. The three baseships, having jumped in on the far side of the planet, had stopped in geo-synchronous orbit about half an hour ago.

The Cylons had never been one's to miss a deadline, especially without some further contact, which would suggest something was wrong. What, however, was anyone's guess.

He turned to Colonel Tigh as the one-eyed man read the latest status report.

"How's the evacuation looking Colonel?"

"We're nearly 90% complete Bill, all that's left is the Chief, those other 'Spartans', and the reserve force that was overseeing the evacuation at their end."

Before the Admiral could say anything, Helo spoke up from his console.

"Sir, Chief Tyrol is on the line, a Major Greer who just landed with the last batch of evacuees says his Pelicans are short on fuel."

Colonel Tigh frowned, "Do they use Tylium?"

Helo shrugged, "Tyrol's already asked them that, they don't know what it is."

The Admiral glanced over at Helo ,"Well we don't have time to find out right now. Its ok, have Lee and a marine force suite up and take some Raptors down to pick up the others. Have all remaining marines go down to the hangar to police our new 'guests'."

The Admiral and Tigh exchanged glances, before he added, "And make sure the marines know to hold the Chief when he arrives... there's some things we need to talk about."

_**Camp Indomitable**_

"It's quiet," Dan commented to the Chief as they slowly patrolled the perimeter of what was left of the camp. Unlike the Covenant's energy based weapons, the Cylons appeared to use conventional warheads and ordinance, which leaved a lot more tangible rubble in its wake.

In a strange twisted way, it was nice to view destruction as something other than endless melted waste.

It had been half an hour since the Chief and the rest of the survivors had emerged from the shelter of the _Death by Degree, _and a steady stream of Raptors and Pelicans from the Galactica had ferried the rest of the crew up into orbit. All that remained were the Chief, Gray Team, and a squad of ODST troopers to guard the perimeter.

Not that there seemed to be much to guard against mind. As Daniel had just said, things were quiet. Muffled explosions and gun-fire could be heard in the distance, but neither the Cylons, the Sentinels, nor even the Covenant had shown up at the camp site as of yet.

It made the Chief nervous when no one was trying to kill him.

"Ever since I hacked into the robot-forms communication network, I've been getting a clearer picture of what's going on. I've even found the frequency the humanoid-forms use to communicate... it's actually the same technology the colonials use. Going by their history, I should have really thought of it sooner."

"Everyone forgets things in their old age," he commented dryly.

"Not funny," Cortana replied.

This was actually true. Whilst the Chief had never really been taught the specifics of AI technology, he did know that at a certain points, AI's went 'insane' or 'rampant', and were an real threat not only to themselves, but to all around them.

He didn't know whether Cortana was still a threat after the events on High Charity and the Ark, but she seemed almost like her old self these days. Still, it was not something he could worry about now.

"What have you found out?" he said instead, moving the subject along.

"It seems the sentinels are attacking the Cylon ground elements in full force." Cortana's voice said almost conversationally. "The Covenant ship did engage with the Cylons in the opening stages, but it seems the Cylons realised they had met their match and backed off. These Sentinels however don't appear to be showing them any mercy. A few have even gone and attacked the Covenant ship, although Silver seems to be holding his own a lot better."

"So what happens when they come our way?" he asked.

"Unknown, although probably the same thing. This must be some old Forerunner outpost or installation, and the recent battles awoke the defence mechanisms."

The Chief paused and looked in the direction of the fighting.

"Good thing we're getting off this rock," he said.

Before Cortana replied, Daniel tapped the Chief on the shoulder and opened up a private com channel.

"Chief, Rosh and Jason just reported in. The ship in orbit is sending down some 'Raptors' to pick the rest of us up."

The Chief nodded, "Ok, head back to the camp, and signal everyone to gather at the landing zone, I'll be there shortly."

As Daniel trotted off back towards the camp, the Chief turned around slowly and surveyed the scene around him. What he hadn't told Dan is that he had a feeling that something had been following them for the past ten minutes. Even though Daniel was a fellow Spartan, his armour was battered and beaten, and the Chief didn't want to risk losing him or any of the others at this stage.

"I know," Cortana said, as if sensing his thoughts. "I feel it too."

A sharp crack behind him caused him to spin round quickly, crouching and brining his weapon to bear at the same time. He remained like that for a full five minutes, carefully monitoring the area, but nothing appeared.

_Strange,_ he thought as he slowly stood up and turned to head back to the camp... which is when he nearly ran headlong into a Forerunner sentinel.

"Watch out Chief!" as the Spartan tried to bring up gun again, but the sentinel already had the drop on him. Using its centre eye-piece, it blasted the chief's MA5C out of his hands, and then used that same beam to hold the Chief in some sort of invisible grip.

"Cortana, what's going on?" He said through clenched teeth as.

Cortana seemed even more stressed then he was as she replied, "I don't know Chief, he's using his beam weapon but in a way I've seen before. I've tried hacking into it but it's protected by something... it's painful just to touch it..."

_Great_, the Chief thought as he tried to break whatever bond the sentinel had on him. Whatever it was doing, it didn't seem to want him dead yet, which was something. If anything, the Chief could swear it was studying him.

Reclaimer?

The stopped moving as the strange voice echoed through his head. It wasn't like someone was talking to him through his comes; it was like it was talking to him in his head. Just like Cortana...

Reclaimer?, it said again.

"Graahahhhh Chief! It's tearing through my very being! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP! GRAAHAHHHH NOT AGAIN!"

The Chief once again struggled frantically to try and escape the machine's grip, but it wasn't working. Nothing was working, and the Chief didn't know how he could help Cortana. Suddenly he remembered what Guilty Spark had said to him on the Ark.

"_You ARE Forerunner..."_

The Chief switched on his external speaker, and spoke to the machine.

"I am Forerunner," he said.

Forerunner? Reclaimer?

"I am Forerunner," he said again.

Reclaimer. Identification Authenticated. Language Matrix Aligned. Downloading Directives."

The Sentinel slowly released its grip as started spouting something about directives. The Chief carefully went to pick his weapon back up, and went back to stand in front of the screen. Its central eye had turned blue and was slowly pulsating, like it was thinking.

"You ok Cortana?" The Chief asked.

"Yeah... yeah I'm fine John. I don't know what you did, but thank you."

"You're welcome," he said.

"The Sentinel is sending me some sort of data packet. I'm not sure what... no..." Cortana's voice trailed off like it always did when something important was happening. It also usually involved sending him into danger.

"What's going on?" He asked.

"Give me a second and I'll tell you, the data is coming through in bits, but I think... yeah. There's another ring somewhere near here."

"Another Halo ring?" the Chief asked. He had really hoped they had seen the last of them.

"Well there are 7 John, we've only seen two of them... I keep seeing references to 02, probably the designation of the ring."

The Chief glanced at the sentinel, who still wasn't doing anything. "Why is it giving us information on another Halo ring?"

"I don't know, maybe there's still a lingering directive to activate them? Maybe it's for protection? I don't know Chief, it's just telling us to _go." _

No sooner had Cortana finished speaking then the Sentinel became active again. Its central eye stopped pulsing and shined a bright blue, and it raised itself slightly from the ground.

"Directive Transfer Complete," it said. "Reclaimer must proceed to the nearest installation. Remorse will show you the way."

And with that, the sentinel floated off back into the forest.

"What was _that _about?" The Chief asked as it watched the machine fly away.

"7 Binary Remorse. The monitor & guardian of Installation 02," Cortana said.

"Sounds like a cheerful guy," The Chief commented dryly as he turned and headed back towards the camp.

"What took you so long?" Jason asked as the Chief jogged up to the waiting Raptor. The Chief had reached the clearing just in time to see two Raptors take off with the ODST troops, with Jason, Rosh and Daniel waiting for him in the last Raptor.

"Long story," he said as he hoped into the Raptor. The Chief walked to wards the pilot seats as the Raptor took off, leaving his Spartans with the colonial marines at the rear.

"Took your sweet time," said one of the female lead pilot. Her co-pilot, a dark-skinned man, simply shot him a sideways glance.

"Sorry," the Chief said. "What's the situation?"

"The toasters have recalled their Raiders, so the skies are pretty much clear. Our birds have pulled back the _Galactica_ in case they decide to attack there. Aside from that, not much else: You can see a lot of gunfights and explosions in the forests coming in, but no details. That other ship off in the distance stopped doing stuff shortly after the Cylons did. They friends of yours?"

The Chief grimaced inside of his suite, "Something like that."

"Well those weird purple fighters retreated some time ago. Haven't see any Heavy Raiders or anything in-"

She stopped when, as if on cue, a Heavy Raider rose from the forest. It looked damaged and as it rose it titled its nose down to fire at something within the forest. Whatever it was obviously didn't appreciate it, as a few moments later a beam of light shot right through what the Chief assumed was the cockpit. The ship was frozen in midair for a split second before it crashed back down to the ground, exploding.

"Whoa," the pilot said. "Let's bring her about Skulls, see what we can see."

Turning the Raptor in a sharp banking manoeuvre, the Chief turned his eyes to the ground as they approached the site where the Heavy Raider went down. Through the trees, he could see Centurions and human-like Cylons battling what looked like a group of Sentinels.

The 'skin-jobs' where using the larger robot forms for cover as they fought what seemed to be a losing battle. The Sentinels were firing beam after beam at their assailants, each one either striking the vital parts of the robot forms, or puncturing a skin job through the chest. He saw two identical male skin jobs flee in terror as the robot form they were using as cover was destroyed, before they too were shot in the back.

One of the Centurions spotted the Raptor, and turned its guns to fire on it before it was gunned down by a group of sentinels.

"Ok, I think we've seen enough," the female pilot said. She kicked the Raptors engines into gear and headed towards the Galactica in orbit.

"They friends of yours too?" She asked as they approached the massive ship.

_Apparently so_, he thought.

Author's Note

… And, sadly, this is where it's going to end. I'd just like to start off by saying a big thank-you to everyone who has supported me and sent in comments over years, especially those calling for me to get off my butt and finish this story.

Unfortunately, that's not going to happen now. I'm a different person to who I was four years ago, and I've lost the drive to finish this particular tale. Back in 2008 Season 3 of _Battlestar Galactica_ had happened, as well as _Halo 3_, and I saw an opportunity to challenge myself creatively by mashing those two loose threads together, thus _The Homecoming Saga_… It was going well for the first year or so, but considering I was in the middle of my degree at university, as a well as discovering my current career, productivity was bound to drop off, and it did.

And then of course _BSG_ Season 4 happened, and I no longer had a gap I was trying to fill, but a full-blown 'Alternate Universe' story, which was less interesting… and so the years went on, and now I've finally decided to throw in the towel.

I want to get back into writing, and I have other ideas I want to pursue, but sadly this is not going to be one of them.

For posterity… whilst I didn't have every moment mapped out, I did have a general idea of where this tale was headed. Having escaped from the Forerunner Outpost with Grey Team and the other UNSC survivors of the _Death by Degrees_, there was going to be another space 'segment' which was going to deal with themes such as Cortana being accepted by the colonials, the colonials reconciling and discovering their Earth brothers and sisters… and eventually they'd reach the edge of UNSC space and head to earth.

Now, again, I hadn't really planned it out, but there was going to be a final climatic battle over earth. The Cylons would be there, perhaps some of the Brute-allied covenant that were still knocking around, as well as whatever UNSC/Sanghelli forces were left as well.

I knew how this story was going to end though; it was going to end with the _Galactica_ making a last stand above Earth as it protects the civilian fleet ships as they make emergency landings on earth. Admiral Adama was going to go down with his ship, and his last words were going to be him officially' handing over; responsibility of the Colonials to the chief as the _Galactica_ takes out the last remaining enemy ships (possibly in the same way the Pegasus did in The Exodus). It was all supposed to be very dramatic and heart wrenching, as the Chief, perhaps saddened that he'd lost so many of his own Spartans, was glad he'd managed to bring these people home safely at least.

Again, apologies to anyone who was looking forward to seeing this story finished, but I hope I've given some kind of closure at least. Thank you all so much for your support.

Joe 'DigitalEccentric' Robinson

P.S. A little bit egotistical of me, but when I first started writing this there was only one other BSG/Halo crossover story that I could find… now there's quite a few more. I'd like to think I started some kind of trend :P


End file.
